Techpriest of Remnant
by Megatronus95
Summary: An Adeptus Mechanicus Techpriest is stranded on Remnant, with no way to reach the Imperium, he settles for surviving and ensuring humanities dominance on the planet and the eradication of the Creatures of Grimm. this is my second attempt at a story, expect erratic updates.
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Tech-Priest of Remnant

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High above the clouds of remnant, the usual calm of the upper atmosphere of the blue-green planet was shattered as a bright multi-coloured anomaly appeared in the sky, followed by a colossal thunderclap as reality was torn asunder. Thankfully it was so high that no native of remnant could look upon it for it they did their minds would shatter at the sheer incomprehensiveness of it. Out of this portal to hell flew a huge red box like craft with short stubby wings and a plethora of weapons clearly visible. On the sides of this craft only one symbol could be seen, a large gear cog with a skull inside it, on half that of a human and the other of a metal skull with wires and protruding around it.

As the craft cleared the tear in reality smoke could be seen pouring out of the left side engine. The craft then lurched downwards towards terra firma while behind it the mind mending portal to the warp closed with another colossal thunderclap. Inside the vessel, the space reserved for troop transport was surprisingly empty, with only three occupants, however considering the nature of the three it was perhaps not at all surprising. The first two nearest the embarkation ramp are giant hulking robots of the Kastelan pattern. Both had massive fists at the end of their arms and had a shoulder mounted gun that on both was currently locked away. The last figure and arguably the most intimidating one was the red robed Techpriest locked in his grav-harness, he or at least he used to be male several hundred years ago wore the customary red robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus with the hood pulled down low over his heavily augmented head with just a set of green lights the only visible thing within its shadow. He showed no outward sign of fear as the damaged craft lurched and shook about as rather than the normal panicked sounds that a pilot would normally call out, the Techpriest just received updates via the noosphere that all adepts of the Mechanicus used for communication.

The modified Thunderhawk dived downwards in as controllable dive as it could handle with the damage it had sustained. The craft was going to land, the Techpriest knew this and had known this since it left the twisting un-reality of the warp, after somehow surviving its impromptu trip through it. As the Thunderhawk neared the ground the Techpriest drew all of his extra limbs and augmentations in around his core, calculating that if that survived he could repair himself if needed. Even as the craft was about to scrape the tops of the trees of the forest it was about to crash into the slave-bonded servitors that made up the four man crew of the Thunderhawk tried to prevent as much damage occurring as possible. The nose of the craft shattered trees as it skidded through the dirt of the forest, sending splinters and dirt flying through the air as it dug a 500 meter long trench in the earth, the adamantium and ceramite hull of the craft holding strong.

Several minutes went by as the Thunderhawk settled into the earth that was to be its new home for the foreseeable future. Miraculously the embarkation ramp, which is located at the front of the vessel had become pointed towards the open air with the rear of the craft becoming berried. A loud banging noise echoed around the trees as the ramp shuddered under a powerful impact, several of these earth shattering blows latter the embarkation deck exploded outwards. Two large shapes appeared in the smoke that billowed out from the newly created exit, as it thinned it revealed the forms of the Kastelan robots. The robots stomped forward and took up positions on either side of the craft facing out as the Techpriest climbed out of the hole. After climbing out and making sure he suffered minimal damage in the crash he turned his attention to the surrounds he was in, the trees where a vibrant green and brown in colour, the sky clear or clouds, natural or otherwise. However neither of these things greatly concerned him the main concern was the lack of any sizable transmission, radio or otherwise, pushing these concerns into a subroutine of his cogitators he turned back to the Thunderhawk and started scanning with his augur array to determine if anything could be salvaged.

Only 7 minutes and 48 seconds into his investigation of the crashed ship he received a burst of code from one of the Robots saying it had detected movement coming towards the crash site. The Techpriest moved around the side of the Thunderhawk to see the incoming detection himself, upon scanning the tree line he found small traces of an unknown radiation particle which piqued his interest with the planet, to be one to discover a new particulate would further his already considerable standing within his order. These thoughts where interrupted by a wolfish howl emanating from the forest as five large black and white wolf looking creatures burst out of the forest underbrush. The wolf like creatures, he observed, had midnight black fur with several bone like plates covering certain parts of their bodies including a white mask on the face of each creature with glowing red eyes that seemed to leave a neon light trail as they moved.

The lead wolf, and also the largest of the group, growled low in its throat. It was drawn to this area after feeling the highest concentration of negative feelings it had ever felt. However upon entering the clearing where it was located it became confused by what was standing in front of it, this 'thing' it thought smelt like one of those bipedal creatures but had a distinct metal smell to it as well like those same creatures tools. What confused it and its fellow beowulves was the lack of emotion coming from either three of the figures standing before it.

The Techpriest regarded these animals with mild curiosity, and as he scanned the surrounding area he found that the new radiation he had detected was emanating from these strange black and white wolves. It was then that the largest of them howled loudly and the large group charged, the Techpriest reacted with experienced and machine guided calm. The two Kastelan robots activated their power fists as the large robots moved to engage in close quarter combat, shoulder mounted flamers snapping into position. They waded in throwing their deadly power fists at any foe that came near them, and those that didn't get close enough where set alight as the Incendine combustors roared to life and spat burning promethium over the hoard.

The Techpriest for his part started activating his weapons from the mundane but still effective digital weapons to his utterly devastating Eradication Ray. Using his machine enhanced targeting the Techpriest was able to dispatch several of the beasts before they neared him and when they did the awesome power of the Eradication ray was unleashed, the first line of wolves was annihilated completely dissolving into their base atoms, the next fared no better, his power axe came into the fray next tearing limbs from bodies and even sometimes sending the entire wolf flying from the carnage. The Wolves increased their attack trying to overwhelm the three fighters, the response was an increase in fire power. The Robots batted aside 3 wolves for every hit, destroying bones and organs, the Techpriest was a flurry of activity with every Mechadendrite whipping about punching holes in chest cavities and ripping of limbs.

The skirmish had been going on for just ten minutes now and it was becoming apparent to the Techpriest that his Kastelans and himself were while not impervious to damage but highly effective at absorbing or downright blocking the claws and teeth of these black wolves. Another 4 minutes later and the last of the wolves had been put down, the Techpriest took this moment to order the return to guard of the robots and to examine the corpses left by the wolves. To his surprise not long after he started examining them the bodies started to dissolve into a black mist, he idly noted the spike in radiation as this occurred.

Pushing any further investigation into his subroutines the Techpriest turned back to the Thunderhawk, noting the fires seemed to have burned themselves out. After finishing his look over of the crashed vehicle he found that beyond the fire damage and some structural damage suffered during the crash the Thunderhawk was in a repairable state, minus the dead servitors in the cockpit. Deciding the best course of action to be to find imperial support if it was on the planet, and failing that hopefully find human remnants from before the age of strife. Activating a long range augur scan he picked up the faintest hint of radio transmissions, after determining surprisingly them being of human origin though slightly varied, he sets forth with one Kastelan robot, leaving the other to guard the Thunderhawk from any potential salvagers.

Moving through the forest proved little difficulty for the Techpriest and his Kastelan escort. The large robot had no trouble stomping through or over roots and broken trees, and the Techpriest was able to use his highly augmented legs, a reverse jointed bipedal set he had used for the last two centuries, allowed him to nimbly navigate his way through the think underbrush. The Augur reading had indicated an approximate distance as 20 km to the source of the transmissions, however after reaching the 12km mark the Techpriest was able to pick up traces of smoke entering the atmosphere from the exact direction of the transmissions and his analysis of the composition indicated that it was not a Manufactorum smoke plume. After getting within 3km of the smoke plume the Techpriest was able to detect ash particulate falling to the ground, it even started to coat his Mechanicus robes.

The Magos reached what appeared to be small village, constructed from wood and stone, with high walls surrounding the entire village. The village itself seemed to be under siege from the same creatures that attacked him earlier however amongst these where what appeared to be different subspecies of the beasts. Calculating the chances of the village surviving the attack showed little promise, yet if he could not solicit help from the local populace it would force him to travel further from his craft which he was loth to do. Coming to a decision he waded into the fight, the Kastelan charging forward, smashing the dark creatures aside with heavy blows while its combustor burned everything that remained out of reach. The creatures howled and roared in pain and anger, the Magos was a blur of activity as his mechadendrites whipped about, digital weapons fired high powered lasers into the faces of the beasts, while an articulated blow torch burned off and vaporised the heads of others, his power axe swung in wide arcs removing limbs and heads as it passed through the crowd its power field ensuring the head remained clean of blood. The eradication ray vaporised masses of the hoard while his phosphor serpentine burned those that remained unharmed within the 360 degree circle of death that the magos and Kastelan had become.

The hoard of beasts had become incredibly thin at the area of wall that the Magos and Kastelan had reached the village at, relieving the pressure on the few remaining defenders within. Rick Silver had never seen anything like it before, this 'robot' had suddenly burst from within the trees on the north side of town, that was at that very moment in danger of falling to the Grimm that had gathered. It was fast, faster than something of that size should be able to move, and then it was upon them its two giant hands ablaze with crackling power, when they impacted it obliterated whatever it hit and sent the bodies flying. It was impressive and was just the sight they need to inspire hope among the defending forces of the village. The second figure to emerge while slightly smaller was no less deadly as it charged with even greater speed, with several mechanical limbs snapping about ripping the Grimm apart. "Rick what the hell are those" one of his companions shouted between swings of his battle axe.

"I have no idea but they can kill Grimm, so focus" he shouted back returning to the task at hand himself using a basic longsword to slice the arms of the Grimm while firing shots with the handgun in his off hand. Before long the Grimm at his side of the village had been wiped out, "alright half of you remain here everyone else go reinforce the other gates" Rick called out orders as the fighters reorganised themselves and carried off the wounded. The magos was surprised to find some humans behind the walls still defending it, and he noticed about half their number retreating, perhaps to reinforce other areas. The thought was dismissed as and middle aged silver haired and grey clothed man approached him wearily. "Um. Hello, thank you for helping us" the man called out, "can you understand me?" he asked as he neared the Magos. The Magos studied the man for a few moments, not detecting any augmentations or and implants of any kind and he noted that this world still spoke low gothic and had only slightly varied the pronunciation slightly, unlike so many other lost worlds.

After a few tense moments Rick final received an answer in the form of a heavily mechanical sounding voice, "yes I can understand you, and now tell me where the nearest imperial outpost is?" the Magos blared through his multiple vox casters. "Imperial, don't know anything about Imperials, but if we survive this Grimm attack we might be able to put you in touch with the atlas military" Rick replied, unnerved by the mechanical voice that seemed to emanate from the smaller robots body. "Grimm? You mean this black creatures?" the magos asked but before receiving an answer the second Kastelan robot appeared from the trees and started stomping with its 'brother' into the village. "Yes, yes that is an acceptable offer" the magos concluded to himself as he followed his robots into the town. Rick Silver could only watch in rapt fascination as these apparent saviours entered the town and made their way to the opposite gate.

The Techpriest marched through the town, fining that there was no resemblance to any gothic architecture in any of the buildings, while not uncommon among those that had been separated from the imperium for long periods of time, to have no common features at all was quite rare. The Magos continued moving towards the next skirmish, homing in on the highest concentration of radiation. Rick caught up to the magos and though keeping a safe distance tried to get more answers to the several pressing questions, "so, um what's your name?' he asked tentatively to try and avoid upsetting the walking weapons armoury. "I am the Venerable Archmagos Corius Gage of the Adeptus Mechanicus, You may however simply refer to me as Magos to save time." Came Corius response in the same droning mechanical voice. "well ok, magos, I'm rick silver, chief of this here little village and I would like to humbly ask you for your assistance with the defence of it" rick said even going so far as to bow, the Magos Corius did not stop however he straightened up and caught up, proving to be difficult as the Magos legs allowed for and increased gait and speed. "I believe I had offered this when I arrived here did I not?" corius replied as he continued his fast gait not slowing in the slightest to accommodate the unaugmented human, "yes well uh, it's just a formality thing I need to ask as chief" rick answered now jogging to keep up and faltering as the two Kastelan robots broke into their equivalent of a run as they neared the gate.

Several hard fought hours later and the Grimm hoard attacking the village had been wiped out, though not without losses, at one point the lines had broken and the Grimm pushed into the village proper slaughtering most of the population as the defenders fought to beat them back, and eventually succeeding as the three newcomers formed up and just pushed into the hoard and annihilating anything and everything in their path, sometimes collapsing burnt out buildings as they passed. Rick sat catching his breath in the town centre as what was left of his village fighters now sought to reinforce the broken walls and the villagers tried to put out the fires that had erupted during the chaos. Corius meanwhile sent his Kastelans to patrol around the village and had them kill any and all Grimm that tried to take advantage of the weakened state of the walls and their defenders.

It was nightfall when Rick finally had the village under some semblance of order, the fires had all been put out and those that couldn't where watched as they burnt themselves out. The walls had been repaired as much as possible and the gates closed and boarded. "Thank you" Rick said as he came along side Corius who was watching the villagers as they milled about starting the process of reforming their lives and mourning loved ones that fell in the fight. "Without your help I fear what might have happened" rick continued when corius didn't respond, "slaughter, I imagine would have been the outcome" corius said with as much empathy as he could muster, which considering his augmentation was not a lot. "Yes it would have, still thank you and as promised when we get the communications back online we will send for an atlas representative to meet you, but if I may ask, what are you?" Rick asked turning to Corius with an inquisitive expression, Corius turned his full body to rick and regarded him for a moment. "I assume you refer to my Species of origin?" when rick nodded corius continued "I was or still am depending on which of my colleagues you ask, Human" ricks jaw dropped, this 'robot' was human, 'how is that possible' he thought before voicing that very thought, "how are you human, you're a robot aren't you" at this corius' multiple arms bristled slightly "I am no such thing, those" he gestured to a one of the kastelans as it patrolled past the section of wall they were on, "are robots I am a 900 year old Magos of the Mechanicus I began like just like you as a squishy flesh bag and thanks to the blessings of the Omnissiah I have received augmentations to remove the weaknesses of the flesh" corius explained angrily as several of his mechadendrites waved about in his anger at being called a simple robot.

"Now, mentioned that your communications were damaged, I would see them" Corius stated rather than requested, his multiple glowing lenses focusing in on rick. "o-of course, it's in the town hall, well what's left of it anyway." Rick said pointing to the largest building in the village, which at that moment appeared to just be a semi hollowed out shell as a fire had burned down most of the outer walls.

Corius made his way back through the town, ignoring the looks of awe and often times disgust that the surviving towns' people threw his way. Corius noted that rick had followed him, probably to ensure that corius did not do anything untoward the village, he felt vague amusement at the thought that he could possibly stop him from doing anything at all. Only 50 meters from the building corius stopped, Rick nearly colliding with him in doing so, and turned towards the remains of a burnt out building in the corner of the village square. Walking towards the burnt down house now, corius gestured for rick to stay, which he obeyed hesitantly, corius made it to where the front door would have stood and found the interior to be as burnt out as the outside of the house. Moving inside he narrowed in on the reason for his investigation of the residence, there in the corner of what was possibly some sort of living room, if the remains of the cushioned seating was any indicator, was a small little girl of about four years old hugging her knees to her chest and crying near silently.

Lilly was scared, more than scared she was terrified, during the attack by the big black monsters her parents had told her to hide in the house while they went off to fight the monsters. She didn't remember much of it but she did remember someone pulling her out of a burning building and hiding her in a crate, and after a long time of hiding and crying from fear the noises ended and the screaming she heard subsided. The rest of the adults had started to clean up when she came back out of hiding so she decided to find her mommy and daddy but after asking several of the adults where they were and only getting sad looks she made up her mind to wait in the house for them to find her. It was a long time later for her when she heard the wood of the floor creak as someone stepped inside.

The Little girl looked up at corius with blood shot eyes and a tear streaked face, she looked at him terrified of what he would do to her, all he did was relax all of his extra limbs and lowered himself to her eye level, maintain a respectable distance. "Hello little one, why are you crying?" corius asked with a surprising, even for him, amount of sympathy in his voice. After a few sniffs the little purple headed girl answered "I can't find my mommy or daddy" she squeaked out softly, "well, let's go look for them together shall we" corius offered reaching out a mechanical hand, after staring at the metal limb for several moments the little girl took it and suddenly she was whisked into his arms and up to his full height. Surprisingly to Lilly she felt metal under the thick red robe the strange man wore but it also felt warm to the touch of her little hands.

The girl must have been under a lot of stress, corius mused because as soon as she was settled in his grasp she was asleep, her soft breath coming in a slow rhythmic pattern. Ricks face grew concerned when corius came back out of the house with a little girl tucked safely in his arms, with others hovering closely around her, almost like some protective shield. "You need not worry, she is in safe hands, however she has told me she cannot find her Parents, and do you know of them?" Corius said as he approached rick with the sleeping girl in his arms. "Yes, and sadly they were among those that we lost today" rick responded looking down in grief. Corius said nothing merely nodding in return and then moving off to finally reach the comms equipment. Not bothering to put the girl down Corius strode up to the console, looking it over he found it to be a fairly basic cogitator with simple controls to send and receive messages in text form, the function itself was familiar to corius, as it operated like all radio transmission equipment, the power to said equipment however was very different, operating on what appeared to be some form of crystallised energy. Upon questioning Rick who was standing nearby alongside the man who was originally trying to repair the equipment, he found out the substance was called dust and that it is the basis for all technology on the planet. After experimenting with the internals of the console corius was able to restore power to the device, while secretly taking a sample of the dust being used to power it, and getting a very good idea of how the technology functioned. "The Console is restored" corius stated as he stood to his full height and stepped away from the console. The Operator thank corius and moved forward and started typing, sending a message to Atlas as it was the nearest kingdom able to send aid and reinforcements.


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Six Years Later

Lilly Gage Skipped happily through metal corridors, humming a senseless tune to herself, alongside her ran what appeared to be a mechanical dog, this was a gift from her new father that had adopted her six years previous after her parents had been killed in an attack on her village. Although she missed her parents deeply she had grown to love and adore her at times strange father, who treater her like he cared about nothing else, doting all the care and attention he could upon her, which at first was odd to see as he was a giant 7 foot tall cyborg who was more machine than man, but she loved him and he her.

Corius had been busy since arriving on remnant, his first encounter with the kingdom of Atlas had been tense at first but after proving his story and also demonstrating his power by disabling the weak excuses for robot that the group had brought with them and then subsequently restoring them, he had been taken along with Lilly to see General James Ironwood and Jacques Schnee the Patriarch of the Schnee family and CEO of the Schnee dust company. After informing both very powerful men that he would not be their puppet as he suspected, he had left, returning to the crashed Thunderhawk he removed the rotten corpses of the servitors and managed to repair the engines and flew it to a location just outside atlas. This was to be the location of the new Tech giant that appeared on remnant, he titled it Mechanicus as the population was ignorant of just what that title held.

The Facility he created was heavily fortified with automated turrets guarding the perimeter and several new Kastelan robots patrolling the buildings, all of these styled in the traditional gothic style. Corius had also in recent months begun developing blueprints for a vat growing facility in order for him to start producing the Skitarii Warriors that proved so effective in the Imperium. All this however was put aside for the moment as his adopted daughter Lilly entered his private lab with the little robotic dog that he had created following her, he had created it after she had approached him on the subject of getting a biological one for her birthday, deciding to use this to his advantage he created a robotic version and programed it with life like behaviour while also concealing some weapons within it to protect his daughter should anything happen to her. To say she was happy when he introduced it to her was an understatement, she had squealed in joy hugging Corius tightly, as he gently hugged her back. Turning to her she smiled up at him, "Are you ready to leave?" he asked as she neared him, spark the dog running up to him happily.

"Yes dad, I'm ready, when are we leaving?" Lilly asked as she looked over the various screens corius had been working on. "Soon, as soon as I am done here" he replied gesturing to the bank of cogitators. Only a few minutes' later corius was leaving his lab with his daughter and her robotic dog in tow. They boarded the Thunderhawk, complete with new servitors, along with the two original Kastelan robots and left the confines of the Mechanicus facility and headed for vale.

In the air the Thunderhawk Olympus caught up to the Altisian air fleet that General Ironwood had ordered to protect vale during the upcoming vytal festival. Entering the mind of the pilot servitor, Corius guided the Olympus towards the general flag ship, coming along side it corius was able to see the general standing on the bridge as he looked towards the Olympus, tipping the wings corius then powered up the turbines and the craft roared of in the direction of vale. General Ironwood stared after the craft, "and he still refuses to share that technology" he stated to himself.

The pilot servitors guided the craft low over the kingdom of vale and circled out towards the huntsman school of beacon. Arriving at the school, corius instructed for it to land at an open landing pad. Thrusters firing, the craft touched down as gently as it could even still it announced it presence at the air dock with a clang and roar of winding down thrusters. The embarkation ramp lowered and the Kastelans stomped down the ramp and took up positions on either side, allowing Corius and Lilly to disembark, turning to his daughter and her dog, "now Lilly, I need to go see the man in charge of this school, so while I'm gone why don't you go explore the school grounds" Lilly's eyes lit up when he said that and with a quick hug and thank you she was off running with her dog spark running after her.

Lilly ran off to the main school building with spark right behind her, she reached the main entrance and as she went to open the doors a group of teenage girls opened it and sent her tumbling over. Rubbing her backside to ease the pain Lilly heard a high pitched voice above her, "are you ok? What are you doing here by yourself? Are you lost" several very fast questions were aimed at Lilly. "Ruby you dolt, look what you've done" came another voice, owned by a white haired girl in a white dress, Lilly looked up and said the first thing that came to her 11 year old mind, "pretty" the girls startled at the soft voice of the girl, "I'm sorry what?" a tall blonde asked. Lilly stood up only coming to Ruby's chest, "she's so pretty, like a princess" Lilly stated looking at Weiss Schnee. Weiss could only stare at the small girl in front of her, who had just said she was 'pretty like a princess', a small blush forming on her face as the girl continued to stare wide eyed and smiling.

Lilly was broken out of her revere by spark nudging her in the leg, "huh, what, oh I'm sorry" she said realising what she was doing. "It's ok it was just unexpected" Weiss reassured the little girl. "What are you doing here by yourself? This is a huntsmen school." Weiss asked lowering herself to the girls' eye height. "I'm not here by myself, my dad's here as well and I have spark" at the mention of his name spark barked and pushed in between the two girls, tail wagging back and forth. "What is that?" asked Blake as she hid behind Yang, her Faunus instincts telling her to hide from the dog like robot. "My dog, Spark, my dad built him for me" Lilly answered, "your dad built that, he must be a genius" Yang remarked loudly. "Well he is, that's him over there actually" Lilly said happily turning and waving energetically towards the tall red robed figure that was about to disappear around the edge of the front court yard.

"Your dad is the CEO of Mechanicus!" Ruby yelled shocked, Lilly recoiled at the loud noise, "y-yes he is, is that bad?" Lilly asked concerned, "No, it's just he is never seen outside of Atlas and even then it's pretty rare" Ruby explained trying to placate the small child. "Yes, father has spoken of him, although they weren't the most kind of words, he did mention that he was quite" she paused, then looking at Lilly "eccentric" She finished. The four teenaged girls then decide seeing as it was a weekend to show Lilly around the school, and soon found out that Lilly wanted to be a Huntress when she was older. "Why do you want to be a huntress anyway Lilly" Yang asked the cute purple haired girl, "well, they're just so cool, like the heroes my dad has told me about, fighting monsters and saving humanity" she answered skipping alongside who she thought were some of the coolest people she had ever met, not that she had met many people but that didn't matter to her. "Does your father know what you want to do?" Weiss asked as she watched the girl study everything with wide eyes, "he does, but he said that I have to learn about his company first, but he did say he would make me a weapon when I was ready for it" Lilly said now bouncing up and down with excitement, which in turn set Ruby off. "ooohhh I wonder what he would make, I mean the stuff that Mechanicus has put out in six years are crazy powerful, I mean he released a scroll with triple the storage space with no price increase, and he made them more durable for us huntsmen" Ruby ranted as they neared the Cafeteria.

Corius watched as Lilly walked off with a group of huntresses, from what he saw in the primitive Noosphere made up team RWBY, one of which was Weiss Schnee the youngest daughter to Jacques Schnee, he would need to keep an eye on her. He left the two Kastelans' to guard the Olympus, not that anyone would be able to pilot it if they got on-board, he then made his way into the main building heading directly to Headmaster Ozpins Office. Corius Stepped into the elevator and reached out a clawed arm to activate it, and in return received a ping and a message saying over weight. It appeared that whomever had designed the elevator had not anticipated hauling anything over the weight of one tonne, forcing Corius to begrudgingly take the stairs, while he did not tire it was immensely degrading for an Archmagos of the Mechanicus to be forced to take the stairs because these underdeveloped people could not build a proper elevator, he was going to make his ire know to the headmaster.

Everything About Beacon amazed Lilly, she bounced from one spot to another following along with team RWBY as she found out was led by Ruby herself. Then they entered the cafeteria, which was fortunate as the morning had gone by quickly and Lilly was starting to get hungry, which was made audible to the older girls when her stomach growled much to her embarrassment. "Come on Lilly let's get you some food" yang said taking Lilly hand and leading her to the large assortment of food that beacon served its students. Surprising to the four young women Lilly was able easily get her own food, picking out a lot of healthy options instead of all the sweets they expected a kid of her age to grab. When questioned she explained that her father had drilled into her the importance of proper nutrition, citing that even though he did not need the same amount as others he still needed the right kind of food. This caused some embarrassment for Ruby because she had filled her plate half full of cookies, while an eleven year old child had made herself a healthier lunch. While the five of them ate lunch team JNPR had joined them, with Nora and Lilly instantly hitting it off, which surprised no one as Nora had a very childlike attitude.

Corius entered Ozpins office to find Professor Goodwitch in the room as well as the headmaster, "I was under the impression that we would be meeting alone" corius stated coming into the room fully. The office had a commanding view of the school and overlooked the city of vale, corius also noted the heavy usage of gears in the roof which appeared to actually be the components of the large clock that made up the top of beacon tower. "Hello Archmagos" Ozpin greeted as he turned to face corius "welcome to Beacon, and as for your concern, whatever you say to me you can say to Glynda, Please won't you have a seat" Ozpin offered gesturing to the seat opposite his desk. "No as I believe it would fail under my weight, much like your elevator, you should consider hiring new engineers if that is the best they can do." Corius replied coming to stand at the desk in front of both huntsmen. Ozpin studied the strange cyborg in front of him "I will look into it, but I digress, what is it you wished to speak with me about?" Ozpin questioned, deciding that this was not a man who would take kindly to small talk if anything James told him was true. "First, is my daughter Lilly she has expressed interest in becoming a huntress and I would like to know if you would accept her when she comes of age?" Ozpin was genuinely surprised by this, he thought that this would be a more serious discussion, seeing as what appeared to be the smartest man on remnant would have more pressing issues. "if she is able to pass the entrance exams then, yes she would be accepted, although I would've thought that she would take over your business when she was old enough." Ozpin replied, genuinely confused by the robotic man. "You speak of matters you know not, she has expressed interest in becoming a huntress so she shall, once she has learned everything I have to teach her, why even now she is engrossed in a lively conversation with one Ruby rose and her team" corius said as the holographic screens on Ozpins desk came online and showed an odd view of team RWBY and a little girl with purple hair.

"How did" Glynda started but was cut off by corius, "Clearly the General did not tell you everything about me, his pride probably could not handle the idea that someone could control his primitive machines" both professors stared incredulously at corius. "if you do not believe me here is more proof" The view on the screens changed again to a feed from an Atlesian Knight robot, it showed the first meeting between corius and General James Ironwood, it showed the knights aiming at corius and then without him so much as lifting a finger the knights all shut down and then as one turned towards Ironwood. "He is a very prideful and arrogant man, if that is not fixed it will be his downfall." Corius stated as the feed ended, "that is something we can agree on" Glynda said with an air of disdain. "Archmagos, would you be willing to explain how you achieved this, as well as your knowledge for some of the quite frankly amazing technology, seeing as you made a power source without using an ounce of Dust" Ozpin asked folding his hands together and resting he head on them. Corius studied them man before him for a moment, he could not believe the gall this man had to simply demand in no small terms for his secrets, he would tell him something but nothing to jeopardise his position. "tell me, what do you know of space?" for the next few hours corius explained the kind of world he came from, from the sprawling empire of man and the Mechanicus to his religion the cult of the machine god. To say Ozpin was stunned was an understatement, here before him stood a being that claimed to be from space, from a whole human empire to be exact, it turned everything Remnant knew about the void on its head, not only where the worlds out there but humans as well. After a long silence Ozpin finally spoke to the interplanetary being before him, "what do you want?", Corius had expected this, "what I want is to bring remnant back into the fold of the imperium, however I am unsure where in the galaxy this world is located and further I have no ability to leave this solar system let alone transmit anything that will not take several thousand years to reach the next nearest star." Corius paused think quickly. "what would be best would be an imperial exploration fleet to happen upon us, but from my observations the stars all look to be in the wrong place for any of the Sectors of known imperial space, so for the moment I shall help this world, these creatures of Grimm have shown themselves to be a nuisance, so I shall eradicate them during my time here, and when the time comes I will help remnant re-join the empire of man."

James Ironwood studies the city of Vale from the Bridge of 'The Schnee' as his Air fleet moved into position over the city, "have a Bullhead prepped to take me to beacon" he ordered one of the bridge crew, "it'll be ready in 5 minutes Sir" came back the crisp reply. Ten minutes later and the general was walking towards Ozpins office, he had seen with mild distaste the Glaring blocky red shape of Corius gage's Self-proclaimed 'Thunderhawk' as he called it. "And I thought Qrow was bad" Ironwood mumbled to himself. Ironwood entered Ozpins office and froze upon the site of the tall red robed man-machine, "ah General it's been to long" Ironwood looked towards ozpin for the first time since entering, Tearing his gaze from the object of his ire he greeted the other two occupants, "it certainly has Ozpin, and glynda it has far too long since we last saw each other." Ironwood said smiling warmly at the female professor. "Oh James" Glynda said with mocking admiration "ill be outside" and with that final statement Glynda Goodwitch left the office. Ignoring the Noises issuing forth from Corius Both Ironwood and Ozpin continued as if he wasn't there. "she hasn't change a bit" James stated watching Glynda leave, so what in the world has brought you so far down to vale at this time of year, Headmasters don't usually travel with their students for the vytal festival." Ironwood shifted slightly, "well you know how I love Vale at this time of year, and I thought that this could be a good opportunity for us to catch up" ozpin raised an eyebrow but before he could respond corius spoke up "he's lying". James scowled and very nearly let out a growl at the machine-man. "Yes Archmagos, I could tell already however I was willing to humour him until he brought it up" ozpin said much to James' humiliation, "what concerns me" ozpin continued "is the fleet that's parked outside my window."

"Concern is brought me here" the general looked over at Corius "however it is not something to be discussed with him here" the clear animosity James held for the man on display. "The thought you could hide anything from me is laughable" Corius said as he made to leave. Ironwood waited for corius to fully leave the room before continuing, "What was 'he' doing here?" James asked angrily, "he was merely discussing his daughter's future attending of the school, and he also explained about his origins though I believe he was with holding a fair amount of knowledge." Ozpin explained hoping his friend would calm down. "He has also expressed interest in helping combat the Grimm, I believe his term was 'eradication', I was even contemplating bringing him into the fold." This shocked Ironwood, "him, become part of our little group of protectors". Now James was furious, "you want that monster to join us, he's dangerous, his weapons are so much more advanced that anything we could even dream of making and he refuses to share anything with us, he won't even show us the dustless power he made." Ozpin waited patiently for his friend to finish ranting. "be that as it may, he is powerful and it would do well for him to be on our side of this secret war, I will however take your opinion into consideration", James looked to have calmed down and after a few moments, "thank you, it makes me feel better knowing that you'll at least consider it."

Corius' interest was piqued, it seemed there was an Inquisitorial like element within the schools of Atlas and Beacon, the mentions of a secret war made corius cautious of his next few moves. If war was to come to remnant, it would learn how the Mechanicus goes to war, over the six years he had been stranded on this back water planet he had started to amass power, even creating a small army of skitarii with the bodies of bandits he had hunted down in the wilderness. His army while small he could say with confidence that it would be the best fighting force to ever walk on this planet. But he digressed and moved on to find his daughter so they could get to their living arrangements for their time in Vale, during the time in Ozpins' office the man had expressed interest for corius to stay in vale until the completion of the Vytal festival, his reason being so he could talk more in person with him and to allow his daughter to see huntresses and huntsmen in action. Despite what corius thought of Ozpin he could respect his ability to know what a person wanted to hear, but he would do it if only to make Lilly happy.

Meanwhile Lilly was still enjoying being in the company of so many huntsmen and huntresses, and when she found out that the tall red head next to her was the Pyrrah Nikos she started asking so many questions, forcing Pyrrah to answer as many as she could for the hyperactive girl, Pyrrah idly wondered in this is what a younger Nora was like to handle. It was while Pyrrah was showing the young girl her weapons Milo and Akouo, that Lilly's father and CEO of Mechanicus Entered the locker room. "Ah Lilly there you are, come it's time for us to leave, Lilly pouted and grumbled out, "really dad, I was having fun". Corius would smile if he could, instead he knealt down to her level, "I know, we may be leaving but we will be back in a few days, it seems Ozpin wishes to speak with me further and also expresses interest it letting you see the Vytal festival" at the mention of the festival lilly leaped into corius and hugged him tightly. "Yay!" she yelled loudly, "I get to see Weiss and Pyrrah fight, this is going to be so cool" Lilly let go of corius and ran up and hugged pyrrah quickly, "ill cheer for you, unless you fight Weiss, then ill cheer for both of you" this earned a smile from everyone around them. The moment was interrupted by corius' voice "what do you think you are doing" corius was standing again at his full height and had a very sheepish looking Ruby in his hand, holding her by the hood of her cloak. "IJustwantedtoseeyourweaponstheylooksocool" ruby blurted out quickly in one breath, if not for his augmentations he would have missed it. Corius glared at the small huntress and after a tense moment he put her back down and said with firm tone "No", and with that he turned to leave, "come Lilly we must leave for now", Lilly smiled shyly at the two teams and said a quick goodbye and hurried after her father.

 **A/N: so i forgot to mention it but a Blanket note is that I do not Own either Warhammer 40k or RWBY those IPs are owned by GW and Rooster teeth respectively**

 **Further, if you wish to understand how Corius looks think a techpriest with a lot of added augmentations and mechadendrites but has legs that are reverse jointed and have clawed digits three in front and one rear.**

 **if you wish me to respond to a review please state so or send me a pm as i will not put responses at the end of the story.**

 **Enjoy, i am only doing this cause i wanted to write the story so if you dont like it, dont read.**


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Corius and Lilly arrived at a fairly large warehouse near the outskirts of vale, the Olympus touching down within the tall fences surrounding it. Upon exiting the Thunderhawk they were greeted by a handful of skitarii and construction servitors, "Alpha-primus, is the facility secured?" questioned Corius as he passed the lone squad of skitarii, "yes Archmagos, the facility has been secured and the gun servitors are in place, hidden as ordered." Corius entered the warehouse and as soon as he did he was hit with the noise of a working Manufactorum, "good Alpha-primus, continue security routines until further notice" corius said and the Skitarii unit moved off, two of its number beginning a patrol of the outer perimeter.

Lilly ran off in the direction of her room she was going to use for the duration of their stay, that left corius to continue his work on the Vat growing schematics, which he calculated he would have complete within another couple of days. His plan was to build a large scale facility to rapidly grow bodies to then be converted into skitarii, and eventually other machines of war, and with the vat born being used no-one would be suspicious of disappearing persons.

Lilly entered her room, and as was typical of her father he had had the 'servitors' as he called them recreate her actual room. Spark jumped up onto the bed as she threw herself onto it as well, she was exhausted after such a long day at beacon, meeting her heroes was exciting but that one girl Nora was more active than her. Lilly fell asleep and the next thing she knew she was being woken by her father, "Lilly you need to eat, and then you can go back to sleep". Lilly dragged herself out of bed. After eating another servitor prepared meal, made just for her, she returned to her room, and feeling rested she decided to do some drawing. A few hours later Corius entered Lilly's room to find her asleep at her desk, so he gently lifted her up in his arms and put her down on her bed, placing the covers over her he turned to the desk and saw what she was working on, it was a drawing of herself standing tall next to what he believed to be Weiss Schnee and Pyrrah Nikos, it seemed he had found two Good female role models for Lilly to look up to.

Having finished the schematic, corius started the construction servitors to their job of building and constructing growth vats in both the Atlas facility and one in the newly christened Vale Manufactorum. With the accelerated growth the first batch of bodies would be ready within a month once the facilities were completed, the genetic base for the bodies is to be a mix between corius and the only female bandit he had turned into a skitarii. He left part of his consciousness supervising the construction while the remainder set to work on developing more weaponry schematics and war machines.

The next morning saw Lilly entering the Manufactorum bleary eyed and yawning, "Dad?" she called out. "Up here Lilly" corius' voice came from high above, corius had climbed up onto the scaffolding that had been erected to build the vats and subsequently the machines that will augment and weaponize the skitarii. "Dad, can I go into vale today?" Lilly called up to him, corius stopped soldering the internal components of a control panel and climbed down to the ground level. Corius debated internally whether it was safe enough to let Lilly wonder around vale by herself as he would rather not draw as much attention as he does, but then he thought of the skitarii, perhaps if he sent one of those along with Lilly and spark he would be able to protect her from any potential harm. "ok Lilly" Lilly looked up at him with a beaming smile, "but only if one of the skitarii goes with you" Lilly jumped up and down happily, "of course, thank you, thank you, ok I'm going to get bye" and with that she was gone, off to get ready for a big day out. " _Alpha-Primus, today you will follow Lilly throughout Vale as her escort, protect her at all cost"_ corius transmitted over the Noosphere, " _Acknowledged"_ Alpha-Primus responded.

Lilly skipped down the streets of vale, marvelling at everything she saw, the Skitarii Alpha-Primus trailing slightly behind her. The unusual pair had been wandering around vale for the better part of two hours now and had continually received odd looks and stares. Lilly had gone into several stores during the trip and had bought a few new dresses to ware, and much to her disappointment she was unable to get Alpha-Primus or 'Alfie' as she took to calling him, to comment on how she looked, only getting vague comments of looks being unnecessary. But she was stubborn if not anything so she had gone to the shopkeeper instead, who had, under the watchful eye of 'Alfie', helped the cheerful girl out.

It was as Lilly skipped along with her new clothes in a bag, she had gotten a fair distance ahead of 'Alfie', who still had her in sight and could react accordingly, that a hand reached out of the ally she was passing and snatched her arm and dragged her into the darkness. "ahhh" Lilly managed to scream out, before a large calloused hand covered her mouth, "now, now none of that," a rough voice said next to her ear "we need you to be a good little brat, otherwise we might have to hurt you" he finished by brandishing a large knife in front of Lilly's eyes, "your gonna help us get rich, we know that that robotic freak adopted you, and we know he has money, nothing like a schnee but more than enough" Lilly's eyes started to water, before she outright started to cry.

As soon as the hand reached out, 'Alfie' was running, just as he reached the ally way a large brute of a man stepped out blocking his path. "You're not going anywhere" the man said brandishing a large double headed axe. Without even responding an arc maul was in 'Alfie's' hand crackling with vicious electricity and flying towards the man's head. The man was quick enough to see the attack coming, and swiped at 'Alphie's' side, 'Alfie' appeared to be done for and the man's glee at such an easy strike was written on his face, but when the axe head connected instead of cutting into the armour or even sending the skitarii flying it merely shattered against the war plate armour. The man stared in horror at the remains of his axe, and the last thing he saw was an arc maul descending on his head. 'Alfie' rounded the corner and found the man who had grabbed Lilly kneeling over her body as he bounder arms and legs, hearing the approach of someone he assumed it was his partner and called out "already taken out that wired robot thing?" when he didn't get an immediate answer he turned and came face to face with an arc pistol, charged and primed, "my master will speak with you" and that was the last thing he knew as the pistol discharged into his face.

Rudd Elec had met with his friend at juniors bar, he had said something about an easy job for a lot of cash, so he decided to meet with him. Turns out the job was to kidnap a little girl for the white fang and in return they would give them as much Lien they could carry. It started off well, they had learned of the location the girl was staying, turned out to be the Mechanicus' new Vale expansion, and so they waited, and eventually to their surprise she left the building with just a crappy looking robot following her. They had trailed her all morning until she started to head in the direction of the Faunus district of vale, so they hid within an ally way and waited for her to pass by. Rudd would grab the girl and Eddy would take care of the robot. Then it all went wrong, he had grabbed the girl and had started to tie her up and hearing footsteps behind him he thought it was Eddy but when he turned around it was the robot, it said something about its master and then it shot him in the face, even with aura it did enough to knock him out.

Corius was furious when the Alpha-primus contacted him and told him what had happened to Lilly, he was immediately on-board the Olympus and flying to the location. Arriving among a flurry of activity, a large crowd of civilians had gathered during the commotion, kept a bay only by 'Alfie's' presence. "Where is she?" at his voice Lilly sprinted out from behind 'Alfie and jumped into corius' arms. Holding Lilly close, he scanned her, and was grateful to only find she had some redness on her wrists and ankles. "Bring him" corius ordered the skitarii, Alpha-primus grabbed the unconscious man by his shirt and unceremoniously dragged him onto the Olympus. Corius made to board as well but was stopped by a local arbitrator, "hey you can't just take him, I need to take him and your robot into custody and I have some questions for you as well" he said with as much courage as he could muster. Corius didn't even turn to look at the man, "no you will not, he attacked what is mine and he will face the consequences brought on him by the Mechanicus" and with that Corius boarded the Olympus with Lilly held securely in his arms. The ramp closed and the craft took off and head back to the Vale Manufactorum.

Corius marched into the Manufactorum and went straight to Lilly's room, the girl had fallen asleep on the way back so he gently put her down in the large bed while spark jumped up and curled up next to her. Closing the door he then made his way to where the skitarii had placed the man who dared her his daughter. Finding him tied to one of the support girders at the end of the facility corius approached bristling with rage. A mechadendrite that held various syringes reached out towards the man, one of the syringes plunged into his neck and the plunger pushed its contents into the man. With a start and a yell the man woke up, wide eyed and looking around quickly, until a voice filled his ears. "You attacked and attempted to kidnap my daughter" corius stated once the man had fully awoken, "explain yourself and your pain shall be limited". "Fuck you!" Rudd screamed at corius and spat at his feet, "I won't tell you anything". Corius let out a mechanical sigh as another mechadendrite snaked forward, the end of it sparking with electricity, sending 50,000 volts through him, the man screamed as his body convulsed, corius stopped and the man continued to twitch. "Let's try again shall we, what is your name?" without waiting for an answer corius sent a much smaller shock through his body, "FUCK! It's Rudd, Rudd Elec, I'll talk just don't do that again" Rudd pleaded. "We shall see, now who hired you?" this time corius did not shock the man, "my friend was asked by the white fang to take your daughter to them, they offered as much lien as we could carry, that's all I know" Rudd answered quickly fearing another high powered shock. Corius said nothing as he processed this new information, the white fang wanted his daughter, most likely to try and blackmail him into giving up something or even working for him, they severely underestimated him, he would not do the same for them. When corius did not immediately speak Rudd grew nervous, "s-so are you going to kill me or give me over to the police?" he asked cautiously, corius looked down at him, "kill you, no that would be to quick, you shall be turned into a service servitor, and become part of the Omnissiah's will." Corius finished as two servitors stomped up to the man cut his bonds and before he could even try to escape grabbed hold and hauled him off deeper into the facility.

James Ironwood was furious, this 'Archmagos' had just decided to kidnap a Vale citizen, he understood that the man's daughter had nearly been kidnapped herself but that did not mean you can just go and deliver your own justice. So now he and Ozpin were in an Atlas bullhead heading in the direction of the Mechanicus factory in vale. "See ozpin, I knew something like this would happen, he's dangerous" James argued, ozpin merely looked in his direction calm as ever, "I you will remember these men had just attempted to kidnap his daughter, and I don't think he would take that very well." James sighed, "I know that, but he can't just take the law into his own hands." Ozpin remained silent for the remainder of the journey. Upon arriving both headmasters found the factory to be alive with activity if the amount of black smoke belching into the air was any indication, "James, remember to let me do the talking" Ozpin warned as they walked up to the main entrance gate along with a few atlas soldiers and several Knight robots.

"Archmagos, there are five humans and several Altesian robots outside the perimeter fence" a Skitarii reported as Corius looked over the final stages of Rudd's servitor conversion, "shall we engage?" queried the skitarii, corius looked up, "no, leave them be, monitor them I will be out shortly" corius ordered, the skitarii made the sign of the Omnissiah and left. Corius finished blessing the new servitor and dismissed it to go about its brand new duties, he then made his way out to the main gate, issuing a mental command the large gate rumbled open both halves splitting and opening inwards. Corius walked right up to the threshold of the gate, flanked either side by his skitarii Alpha-primus and secundus, "headmaster" corius nodded to Ozpin and then turned to Ironwood, "General, to what do I owe the pleasure of this unplanned visit?" corius asked knowing full well why they were here, "you know damn well why we're here, you kidnapped a vale citizen" the general yelled, "general please, calm down" ozpin asked in his usual calm tone, "I'm sure the 'Archmagos will explain his actions" ozpin then nodded towards corius silently asking for him to continue. "he attacked what is mine, so I took him for questioning, as it stands he revealed that he and his associate were hired by the white fang to Kidnap Lilly in I believe to be an attempt to try and control me, they have made a grave mistake, they have brought the full might on the Mechanicus upon them" corius finished making the sign of the Omnissiah. "The white fang, here in vale, Ozpin did you know about this?" James asked turning to his friend, "I had suspicions about it, but never enough intelligence to confirm it" Ozpin stated casually. James turned back to Corius and was about to start arguing when corius cut him off, "before you start spouting about how I cannot fight my own secret war, let me tell you a few things, I have lead armies that outnumber the human and Faunus population on this planet, using machines of war that are larger than any of your ships you are so proud of, never mind that I know for a fact that you and your little group of comrades are fighting your own little secret war" corius stopped and seeing no immediate response coming he turned and left the pair of headmasters, the gates slamming closed behind him.

"Why did we let him go, he still has that kidnapper, I know that he's a criminal but that doesn't mean that that man" James gestured angrily at the factory "is allowed to do with him as he pleases". Ozpin remained calm as he headed back to the bullhead, "I know James, but this man is quickly become one of the most powerful people on remnant, and from what he's told me and as you just heard he has experience leading large forces, this is not a man to trifle with carelessly, it would be better to persuade him to our cause." James looked at ozpin for a moment as they both boarded the bullhead and it took off, "and how do you suggest we do that?" he asked, "we use his love of his daughter" ozpin answered simply. "We will ask him if his daughter would like to attend the dance happening in a few weeks and I know she will, she seemed to become quite infatuated with Miss Schnee and Miss Nikos when she was at beacon. When they both arrive, Lilly will have fun with the students and allow us to talk in a more casual setting with Corius." And with that the two headmasters had formed a plan to try and fold Archmagos Corius Gage into their little group of defenders.

Corius had a very human feeling running through him at the moment and it to him a few moments to recognise what it was, 'Satisfaction' he realised, at getting one up over the general, which he found odd, he was blessed by the Omnissiah he should feel no need to do such things. It seemed he still had much to learn even at his age. But he digressed and moved on to how he was going to find this white fang group and eliminate them from the city, if not the planet. The Vats, would be complete in a week allowing a few days for unexpected interruptions, but in the meantime, he would have some larger reinforcements brought into vale, he had received word that the first Dunecrawler was finished while he was away and so he sent orders to prepare it for transport. Moments later the Olympus took off and powered off in the direction of Atlas. "The white Fang will regret bring me into their little conflict, they speak of war, yet have never truly experienced its scale." Corius watched the Olympus disappear from visual range and then his auspex scanners, Remnant did not know what the white fang had awoken within the machine.

 **A/N: again i dont own either 40k or rwby**

hope this chapter made sense, and the next few will invlve more action and then we'll get to the dance and then the invasion, which i can promise will be brillant. until next time read and enjoy.


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Over the course of a few days the Onager Dunecrawler was transported from atlas to vale, unfortunately it need to be partially disassembled before being put back together once it arrived. Corius blessed and oiled the machine as it was reassembled, a heavy scent of incense filling the Manufactorum and the sound of Binary cants being broadcast throughout it. After a full 24 hours the Dunecrawler was brought back online and its Slave bonded crew installed, and while young corius could feel the machine spirits eagerness to serve the Omnissiah in battle. Being aware of General Ironwoods attempt at surveying the Manufactorum, corius has had to resort to keeping most of the servitors and even the dunecrawler itself now within the confines of the main structure, at least until he is able to figure out what to do about the general weather that be an alliance with the man and joining ozpins little group or just outright ignoring them and taking everything under his own power.

Ozpin and Ironwood had continued to scheme and plan for the eventual recruitment of Corius gage into their 'brotherhood' for lack of a better term, with ozpin begrudgingly agreeing to Ironwoods surveillance of the factory, despite the numerous times that ozpin warned of Corius' many detection abilities. Despite all this the school year appeared to be going well, with his students even stopping a major dust theft last semester, Ozpin sighed however when he looked over Blake Belladonna's current grades. It appeared she was suffering in class, and it pained him to not interfere, but part of training to be a hunter meant relying on your team so he would wait and see what the rest of team RWBY would do about the situation. Besides that little development ozpin was happy with his first year's progress, but it would all come to fruition when they embarked on their first mission, which would occur a week from now after the School dance.

Corius Gage was an enigma to ozpin, an unknown, and while ozpin did not know everything, he knew enough about every major player in remnant to be able to predict future events. Corius spat in the face of those predictions, he routinely behaved erratically even during their first conversation, one minute he is talking casually about his daughter and then the next he is speaking about a vast interstellar empire fighting aliens with numbers that not even the Grimm could match. It made ozpin scared, and very few things could make the veteran huntsman scared these days, it was all the more reason he wanted to get the man onto his side in what corius would have called a minor skirmish. The fact that he had killed one vale citizen and taken another upset ozpin, he understood that both men where criminals, the dead man having quite the criminal record, it was still unnerving to have someone willing to do it out in the public eye in the kingdom. It was now that ozpin decide that if Corius decided to refuse even basic teamwork together f not a full alliance he would have to move against him as well as the queen and hope that corius did not join her.

It was a few days later nearing midnight that Glynda contacted ozpin in his office, apparently they had been an incident on the highway involving a large robot and Team RWBY, which seemed to be becoming a bad habit, the fact it was a robot lead him to where ozpin was now standing at the gate to the Mechanicus factory. The Gate soon rumbled open and one of those 'skitarii' as corius called them lead ozpin into the facility, leading him into the main building, which ozpin noted smelled faintly of oil and some kind of incense, down a long wide industrial corridor before it opened into a wide space, where he was met by the still imposing figure of Corius and what looked like a large mechanical crab. "Now headmaster, I do believe it is well past the cordial time for social visits, which leads be to conclude that you suspect me being involved in tonight's incident" Corius stated not turning to look at ozpin, the headmaster stepped up beside the tall cyborg, "well, the mere mention of robot nowadays has become synonymous with you I'm afraid" ozpin answered marvelling at the machine in front of him. Corius noticed ozpins held back awe, "it's known as a Dunecrawler, the first of its kind here on remnant, and though young it is eager" corius stated placing a clawed hand upon its armoured hull. "Young?" ozpin questioned, "surely you mean new?", this time corius did turn to regard the man, "no, meant what I said, its spirit is young but eager" Now ozpin was really becoming confused, Spirits in machines was this part of corius religion he spoke of, "what do you mean spirit?" ozpin asked his neutral face back in place, "exactly that headmaster, a spirit, a manifestation of the machines will and drive, in my world all of the oldest machines have equally old spirits and it is my job as a Techpriest to ensure they are placated to function to their full capacity. I don't expect you to understand, but think back to every time you have spoken at a piece of technology and you might start to understand" corius finished turning back to the dunecrawler in front of him.

Corius studied what limited footage was captured of the event that brought the headmaster of beacon to his Manufactorum, he recognised the prototype design of atlas' attempt at building their own version of an Imperial Knight chassis, while nowhere near tall enough, or armoured or armed the only thing it had going for it was its mobility, but considering a team of first year huntresses tore it apart corius was not worried that atlas would become a credible threat. The Presence of Roman torchwick presented no threat to corius as it appeared that he was only targeting the Schnee Dust Company and not just going on a crime spree, what he was concerned with was the White Fang symbol that was painted on the front of the Prototype, it confirmed the strong presence that the White Fang had moved into Vale. What irritated corius is that they had learned to keep everything on physical paper, and not use the CCTS to transmit their orders, meaning he would have to turn to either just rooting them out himself or garnering information out of ozpin. He would need to speak with him when he took Lilly to attend this School Ball that Ozpin had organised, he knew what he was trying to do, by appealing to his love of Lilly, he didn't care about that, but it would be a good opportunity for Lilly and now him to talk to their fellows.

The Ball was still four days away, and the growth vats had just been finished, corius had just completed his last construction rite and blessing, now the raw genetic material was put in place and the accelerated growth of skitarii soldiers could begin, and the same was happening at his Forge back in atlas on a much larger scale. Corius was pleased with his armies growth, he had several dunecrawlers on the way and now he had more skitarii being grown as well, however he would need more now if the 'threat' of the White Fang was to be eliminated from Vale. That is why he was now flying the Olympus to the Faunus district of Vale, because the abhumans were also seen as second class citizens even here on remnant no one would investigate if several of them went missing, especially the homeless. In the dead of night around the industrial section of the Faunus district the Olympus touched down, and Corius with five of his Skitarii disembarked and spread out, " _For Now grab only those living on the Streets, do not be seen and be quick"_ corius transmitted as his skitarii moved off to carry out the orders. And half an hour later and all five were back at the Olympus carrying two unconscious Faunus each. A pair of golden eyes watched the Olympus take off and disappear into the city, the figure stepped out of the shadows to reveal the mask of the White Fang before the figure took off in the direction the White Fang hideout.

"He's done what!" screamed the Fang Lieutenant at the Grunt that had delivered the message, "he has taken about ten homeless Faunus back to his factory sir" answered the grunt warily. The Lieutenant stewed in rage at the audacity of this Corius Gage, to take Faunus from the street in clear view, his rage found him slamming his chainsaw into the wall next to him freighting the Mouse Faunus before him. "go back and watch his factory, I want to know every bit of movement he does, if he leaves send word and we shall track him" he ordered the grunt, "and send word to Adam about this he'll need to know" wit that the mouse Faunus retreated to carry out the commands. "You are too arrogant for your own good, the fang will take you down alongside every other human, and then your tech will be ours." The Lieutenant smiled sadistically while watching the recording of Lilly they had obtained.

Corius watched with mechanical satisfaction as the Abhumans were converted into a new skitarii squad, complete with their own Alpha and secundus. The abduction had been completed successfully and without incident, none of the Faunus had known what was occurring until they woke up within the confines of the Manufactorum where they were mind wiped of their personal memories, useless things like family and friends were not needed for the service to the Omnissiah and then began the process of turning them into Skitarii. The last member was finished, now completely bent to the will of the Omnissiah and corius, "Reporting for orders" the Alpha droned out. Corius regarded it for a moment before sending orders to both Squads, " _Unit Alpha will remain with the Manufactorum, Beta will accompany myself and Lilly when we attend he Ball occurring tomorrow, it seems the White Fang are attempting to move against us"_ the Units moved to carry out their orders, with Beta moving to arm themselves and prepare for potential combat.

Lilly was excited, today she would be going to her first Dance, although it was a school full of older students she didn't care, she would get to hang out with her new heroes. Lilly was currently sitting in a hairdresser's chair with the lovely lady tending to her, when she had arrived with three Skitarii in tow the woman had nearly fainted and when she asked one of them what to do with Lilly she only got a blank unblinking stare back. Lilly saved the woman however by answering herself, "dad said I had to look good for the Ball tonight, he gave me this for you" and Lilly handed the woman a large pile of Lien. "Oh my" she said upon seeing what looked like a thousand lien in the little girls hand, "we'll defiantly make sure you look absolutely stunning sweetie." And that was how Lilly ended up have not only her hair done but her nails and some light makeup as well. Next she went off to by a dress that was 'suitable for a noble' ball as her father said. Again the Little girl with her skitarii guards scared the woman serving in the shop Lilly had wandered into, again a large amount of lien was placed in the woman's hand and Lilly walked out with a new dress and shoes. She returned to the Manufactorum without incident this time, which was unsurprising as word had reached the criminal elements of vale about what happened last time someone tried to kidnap the little girl.

The Night of the Dance arrived, and with it the Olympus Flew low over the roof tops of Vale, engines roaring as it circled round the Plaza in front of the building hosting the dance and then with retro thrusters firing touched down gently facing the main doors. All the students still outside stared in awe as the large red craft landed in the court yard, and then the ramp under the cockpit opened revealing ten red robed 'robots' they thought and behind was another larger robot, that some like Yang who was handling entre recognised as Corius Gage, and to almost everyone's surprise a cute little Girl in a wonderful purple dress. The squad of skitarii fanned out to surround the building and faced out, ready to defend from any potential attack, while Corius guided Lilly up to the main entrance, which no one tried to stop. Coming up to Yang, Lilly ran up and hugged the young woman "hi yang, you look pretty" Yang smiled brightly, "so do you cutie, though I didn't think you would be here" yang said as corius reached them, "yes, well I have business to attend with Ozpin and Ironwood and Lilly expressed great interest in attending" corius answered as he moved past yang and into the Building, "well he's cheerful" yang commented when corius disappeared inside, "that's just dad when he gets focused on a task, don't worry about it" Lilly said casually. "Ok, well why don't you go inside and find Weiss, I'm sure she'll be happy to see you" and with that said Lilly was gone, rushing inside to find her favourite huntress.

Ozpin and Ironwood watched Corius' arrival from one of the high windows, "he does love an entrance" Ozpin said quietly, "yes, and seems to have become paranoid if those soldiers are any indicator" Ironwood commented. "I suppose he believes the White Fang are after him, he does have reason to believe that as well" Ozpin answered as Corius entered the building. Corius mad e his way over to the two headmasters, which was made easy by the fact that the students moved quickly out of his path, "headmasters" corius greeted coming up to stand in front of them, "I understand that you both wished to speak with me" Ozpin shared a look with Ironwood, "yes Corius but not out here in the open, let us retreat to a private room" Ozpin said as he walked off followed by Ironwood and corius trailing behind. Walking into a small room, what appeared to corius to be used for meetings of some kind, Ozpin sat in one of the many office chairs while Ironwood lent against one of the far walls, "so Headmasters, you wish to make an alliance" corius stated, startling both headmasters, Ozpin quickly recovered "yes, as well as introduce you to our little group of protectors" receiving no reaction Ozpin continued "while our world is beset by the creatures of Grimm, and the White Fang there is another group led by a figure known as the Queen that seeks to destroy Humanity on this world, we" Ozpin gestured to himself and Ironwood "are what stand in her way, we would ask that you help us in this endeavour, whether that be your support through supply or even direct action when it is called upon, obviously we would give you something in return, something I believe you would know more about than any other person on remnant" when ozpin said this Ironwood shifted slightly. Corius stood, processing this information, "how powerful is this 'Queen'?" he asked, "very" was ozpins short reply, "and what is this information you speak of?" at this question, ironwood stood up straight "you said you were from space, well the reason that Atlas has always been more technologically advanced that the other Kingdoms is because we found something, something old and buried" corius was surprised, if he was correct then these humans had found a cache of Archeotech that had been lost on remnant sometime ago. "What did you find" Corius pressed, instead of answering Ironwood placed a small object on the table that came to life and projected and image, and image that Corius recognised instantly.

"You Found an Imperial Ship" corius said awed for the first time either headmasters had seen, "yes we found it about 20 years ago, and since then we've been reverse engineering its technology, adap" Corius turned angrily to ironwood, "you defiled the Ship, you will hand over its coordinates to me now, and withdraw all of you scientist at once" corius ordered, "what, you can't expect us to hand over our only source of research we have" Ironwood argued, "I can and I will, I am the ranking Official of the Imperium on this planet and the ship is imperial property, you will surrender it or I will take it" Corius threatened, several mechadendrites unfolding. "Gentlemen please, calm down I'm sure we can come to an arrangement" Ozpin tried to placate both men before they came to blows, because he knew that Corius would come off best if that were to occur. "I will have that ship Ozpin, that is non-negotiable, it belongs to the Imperium and these" Corius gestured to Ironwood "primitive scientist have defiled it, its Machine spirit must be in immense agony at being torn apart without proper rites and prayers" Ironwood was confused by this, "you talk as though its alive" corius glared at the man, "of course it is, a ship of that age would have spirit that would know its crew and them it, it would protect them from harm, and perform for them only, and you decide to just rip pieces out of it like some animal, so I say again, surrender the vessel." Ozpin sighed he knew this would not be easy but he had underestimated Corius' fervour to his religion, "Archmagos" corius turned at the use of his formal title, "would it not be possible for cooperation on this issue, perhaps if you were in control of the operation, with support being supplied by Ironwood and his army." Ozpin supplied hoping for a mutually beneficial outcome to the meeting. "I will have final say on all technology given to atlas and all of the proper rites and prayers will be followed by all who participate." Corius said, already plotting when and how to full take back the ship. Ozpin turned to Ironwood "is this acceptable?" Ironwood looked uncomfortable with the idea, but realised that they would finally be able to actually understand the writing held in the ship, "yes, I have no other choice do I."

The night ended well for Corius, despite not gaining full control of the rediscovered ship he would now have access to it and would eventually take it completely from atlas, and he could ensure no highly advanced technology got into the hands of General Ironwood, he was lucky that most of the information they had gathered had come from recreating the hardware used within the ship and not the software. He Needed to Prepare for the journey, it appeared that the ship had landed in a valley on near the coast of atlas some time ago and had been buried in subsequent landslides, he would leave the Dunecrawler and one squad of skitarii to guard and protect the Manufactorum, while the other would accompany him to the Ship to become its guard to prevent any atlas scientist removing forbidden technology. His issue became what to do with Lilly, he needed to get to the ship but did not wish to leave Lilly here, while the skitarii could protect her, she would need more sophisticated supervision. It was then that he came to the conclusion that he would need to trust to trust her with someone like Ozpin. The Conversation that followed was quick and to the point, Ozpin agreed to take care of Lilly for a few days at time to allow Corius to work on ship while a pair of Skitarii would be deployed to the school to act as Lilly's guardians. So it was with a great flurry of activity that the Olympus landed at Beacon, dropped off a little girl with a pink backpack and her two Skitarii guardians, and lifted off and took off in the direction of Atlas at full power, breaking the sound barrier over the city of vale.

 **A/N: Again i dont own 40k or RWBY, and credit to Deeed22 for helpo with story elements in this chapter. read and enjoy**


	5. 00110101

01000110 01101001 01110110 01100101

The Olympus powered hard into the valley that contained the Crashed ship, Corius watched from the Cockpit as the Olympus circled the partially uncovered ship, which fortunately appeared to be near to the bridge of the craft. Setting down roughly the ramp lowered and Corius rushed out of the craft, stalking quickly past the shocked faces of the Atlas scientist and proceeded to enter the ship through the hole in the hull that the archaeologists had uncovered in the ship. Only two Skitarii followed him the other eight set up at various points around the camp that was set up, conveniently blocking all exits to the camp.

Corius Quickly found the chief scientist that was formally in charge of the project, he was an older man, bespectacled in half moon glasses that showed dull blue eyes that looked more youthful than the rest of his wrinkled face, and he wore typical white coat and simple button up shirt and black trousers. "Are you Dr Charles?" Corius asked coming up to the man, who promptly jumped as he was brought out of his intense study of a cogitator interface. "y-yes I am, I take it you are Corius Gage, and it's an honour to meet you" Charles said calming down slightly, though he spoke as though he was constantly on edge. "Good, cease you attempts at interfacing with that cogitator and allow me" corius said pushing Dr Charles to the side, to Charles' surprise corius started to speak in Binary, while folding his main pair of arms and forming the sign of the Omnissiah, as he spoke the binary got faster and faster until it sounded to Charles like static. After thirty seconds of this the display that the doctor had been trying to turn on for several weeks, came alive with power showing the language that had been written all over the ship, and defied all translation. "How?" was all the doctor could ask, "the Omnissiah provides" was corius reply.

With Corius present, the atlas scientist where quickly becoming aware that he did not want them around so it was left to Doctor Charles to watch him according to General Ironwoods instructions. Corius was dimly aware of the doctor standing next to him as he slowly but surely integrated his consciousness with the remains of the machine spirit of the ship that he found to be christened 'The Wraith' and was an imperial Cruiser and that I had entered the Atmosphere heavily damaged and when it crashed the Hull was torn into several large pieces, with the largest piece being the rear of the craft with the main engines. What intrigued Corius more and was more useful for the near future was the cargo that the ship was transporting prior to colliding with the planet, Imperial Knight Chassis, four of them to be exact, the only question was their state of repair, being without crew or maintainers for millennia would cause damage to any machine, though they will not have rusted, which was one thing Corius was grateful for. He withdrew his mind from the remains of the ship's and found the doctor staring at him, "yes doctor?" corius asked, "you've been standing there for half an hour unmoving", corius found this odd before remembering that no one on this planet had access to the Noosphere, "I was talking to the spirit doctor, perhaps one day you will to" corius said moving of deeper into the ship in search of the Knight Chassis.

Lilly was board, team RWBY had left the day before to begin their first mission, shadowing a full huntsman. This left Lilly virtually alone, sure she had JNPR to talk with but she quickly found that other than Nora none of the other team members new what to do with her. So she decided to find Ozpin and see if she could visit Vale while team RWBY where away. Entering his office she found him again sitting behind his large desk, looking up he smiled "what can I do for you today Ms. Gage" Lilly was suddenly feeling shy and managed to mumble out a barely audible "can I go into Vale Please Mr Ozpin?" fortunately Ozpin still had sharp hearing, "Hmm, so long as your escorts are with you I see no problem with that" instantly Lilly perked up instantly, "thank you, I'll be back before dinner" and with that she was back in the elevator and heading to vale with her escorts in tow.

Vale was becoming livelier with every day as the Vytal festival drew ever closer to starting. Lilly just skipped happily through it all without a care, she knew she was safe with her skitarii protectors and her father had assured her that nothing like that would happen to her again. She then spotted a toy store across the open plaza that she was currently in and quickly diverted to the store, her guards waiting outside, still as statues. She very quickly found the section that stuffed animals, she found one she instantly fell in love with, it was a stuffed version of the Atlas robots, while not a skitarii she still found it to be lovely. She grabbed one and took it to the counter, handing over the money she ran outside to show 'Alfie' her new toy, "look Alfie" she said holding it up for the Alpha-primus to view, "what is it?" 'Alfie' asked, "It's a stuffed robot, silly, although I would have liked one of you instead" she answered frowning slightly at the end. Before 'Alfie' could respond the ground shook and then the far wall opposite their position exploded outwards.

'Alfie' threw himself in front of Lilly, as debris flew through the air. Grimm of all kinds started to pour through the hole, with a larger King tijus widening the hole. Lilly screamed as the dust settled, 'Alfie acting quickly grabbed the girl and lifted her up into his arms and ran, the Secundus following closely. Alfie then contacted the Manufactorum, " _This is Alpha-Primus Unit-Lilly is in danger, deploy Alpha squad, Dunecrawler and Kastelan robots to my location, and contact the Archmagos inform of situation and request orders."_ At the Manufactorum the Main gates rumbled open and the remains of Alpha Squad and the Dunecrawler stormed out determined to rescue the little girl. Alfie found the streets clogged with civilians trying to flee the Grimm, with those that were deeper in the plaza being slaughtered by the dark creatures. Alfie diverted trying to get around the panicked civilians and get Lilly to safety, Secundus opened fire with his arc rifle at a creep that got to close for comfort, Alfie joining his fire a second later with his arc pistol. The creeps fell easily, to the dangerous energies produced by the weapons, the pair of skitarii continued to run, dropping any Grimm that got in their way until they reached an emptier street. Alfie ran hard the mechanical legs the Archmagos had given him propelling him faster than the average human, but the escape route was cut off as a pack of beowulves came around the corner at the end of the street.

Corius felt mechanical rage well up inside him as the Olympus powered at full thrust back towards Vale, he had received a relay message from the skitarii in the camp, it appeared that Grimm had invaded Vale and his Daughter was currently in danger. The Alpha escorting her had correctly deployed the small garrison force to protect her. Corius just hoped for remnants sake that nothing happened to her, otherwise he would bring the full military might of the Mechanicus down on the world. As the Olympus powered over the Continent Corius started watching the view of his skitarii units on the ground, he saw Lilly, secure in the Arms of the Alpha-Primus though it was a desperate situation, the view was then shorted out by a bright blue flash.

Alfie Fought hard, secundus was at his back his arc rifle blazing, the Grimm had started to press in on the pair of skitarii, and just when Alfie thought they were going to be over run the group of Grimm in front of him where engulfed in a bright blue light, and then when the light faded there was nothing but the welcoming sight of eight more skitarii, dunecrawler and two Kastelan robots charging forward. " _Form ranks, continuous fire. Do not let these foul creatures move one step forward"_ Alfie transmitted and the skitarii followed with machine precision. The kastelans moved forward with the covering fire provided by the Skitarii, and waded into the fight, power fists sending Grimm bodies and body parts flying, while the dunecrawler laid waste to swaths of the hoard with its neutron laser, its beam atomising the creatures in an instant. _"Skitarii. As one, Forward!"_ Alfie ordered and with machine blessed precision the line of Skitarii Started a slow march forward pressing a withering volley of fire into the hoard, their targeting protocols picking out the high priority threats and quickly eliminating them. Alfie stayed behind the line and commanded from the rear while keeping Lilly firmly within his grasp, the fighting had been going on for near an hour now and it seemed like the Grimm had endless numbers, the fact that the small squad had not been overrun meant that there was at least some fighting going on else were in the city to contain the threat, Alfie could vaguely see the airships of the Atlas army, deployed over the area.

The Olympus thundered over the outer walls of Vale, zeroing in on the rising smoke coming from near the centre of the city. Corius had narrowed in on the position of the Skitarii fighting on the ground and had the Olympus move in to provide supporting fire. The Thunderhawk roared above the fighting, retro thrusters firing to bring the craft into a hover, the side mounted heavy bolters opened up sending hundreds of mass reactive rounds into the line of beasts, and underwing missiles launching deeper into the hoard, thinning their number greatly. As it hovered there only 10 metres above the street the ramp dropped open and out stormed Corius, followed closely by the second skitarii squad, Corius dropped right in front of the Skitarii line, his power axe came to life crackling with ancient power and he thundered forward his mechadendrites becoming a blur of activity. Corius smashed heads, cleaved limbs and disintegrated Grimm with his eradication ray, as the force pushed forward they found themselves entering the Plaza that the attack originated from, they also found several groups of the students from beacon fighting with help from the professors and even the primitive Atlas robots, though it appeared to corius even as he cut down another borabatusk, that these fighters were only preventing the Grimm from advancing and not pushing them back.

Glynda Goodwitch could not remember the last time she was happy to see Corius Gage, she in fact had never been happy to see him, but at this moment as he and his mechanical soldiers marched into the Plaza driving the Grimm before them she felt hope for the situation. She had arrived at the scene at what felt like a life time ago, to find team RWBY surrounded by Grimm and numerous more charging into the city, so herself and professors Obleck and Port joined in the defence alongside teams JNPR and CFVY. And then another man she didn't think she would be thanking this day made his presence known, The Atlas air ships arrived and started deploying their new Knights into the city, and while they were more vulnerable that Corius' soldiers they had the effective numbers to make up for it.

The Dunecrawler obliterated the smaller Grimm as it moved up behind the now extended line of skitarii, the bonded crew working to keep the machine firing and supporting the Archmagos. The Kastelans were like an army unto themselves amidst the Grimm, there thick armour deflecting claws and teeth, while their giant fists smashed the offending creatures apart. The Mechanicus force continued to push forward, the Grimm hoard thinning all the while, it was then that a massive Deathstalker made its way through the hole that the Grimm had entered through. Recognising the threat it posed Corius sent the mental order to focus fire on the creature, ten skitarii diverted their fire while their brothers held back the tide, the Deathstalker withered under the onslaught but did not go down, it was then that the Thunderhawk reminded the world of its presence and fired on the creature as it flew past, its dorsal mounted battle cannon firing and blowing a gaping hole in the carapace of the Grimm.

With the reinforcements of both the Skitarii and the Atlas Knights the Grimm were quickly being repelled and pushed back into the hell they came from. Reaching the hole Corius had his skitarii surround it and start firing en-mass into the resurging creatures even as Professor Goodwitch used her semblance to patch the hole. Corius looked about to survey the damage done, scores of civilians had been killed in the attack, but thankfully the Grimm had not made it far into the city before the defenders could get to the site. Then the Alpha-primus, new designation 'Alfie', approached the Archmagos with a perfectly fine Lilly in his arms, who immediately jumped into his arms and cried. Corius tried to sound as calming as possible to Lilly "its ok now, the monsters are gone, your safe, thanks to Alfie" at his name the skitarii mealy nodded his head.

It was a few hours after the attack that found Corius meeting with Ozpin, Ironwood and Goodwitch, Corius had yet to leave Lilly out of his sight which was why she was lying on a couch Ozpin had in his office sleeping. "Who was responsible for this failed invasion?" corius asked glaring at ozpin, who just ignored the man, "the White Fang, team RWBY had been assigned a mission to examine mountain Glenn with Professor Obleck for a potential White Fang hide out, they found it too late to stop the plan to open an entrance to Vale for the Grimm." Ozpin explained for those present. Ironwood spoke up, "you were lucky that both myself and Corius where here Oz, if we weren't well I don't think vale would still be here, not with the numbers that flooded through." Ozpin sighed, "I am aware of that, and I am grateful that you both came to Vales defence, and I will be forever in your debt" Ironwood deflated, he did not wish to humiliate the man, just merely make a point. Corius spoke, "It seems the White Fang have become more Brazen in the past months, perhaps they received new support for their operations" he mused outload for the others. "in either case, I did manage to gleam some information from 'The Wraith' before I had to return, and I may have discovered some technology to help us in the future" the three huntsmen turned to Corius, with James speaking first, "you have its name, and already found new technology, what was it?" he asked, corius regarded the man for a moment, "I said it would help us, I did not say I would give it to you, as only someone like me would even be capable of getting to it let alone operating it, fret not I will provide other resources for your use, armour that is more effective than you current issue and rifles that will out class your current projectile based weapons." Corius explained which managed to calm the General down. "Now if you'll excuse me I have a ship to examine, I will return in time for the Vytal Festival." Corius turned to leave, picking Lilly up gently, he left the office.

The Olympus arrived back at the crash site with the Archmagos, his skitarii and Lilly on board. Corius took Lilly to the Shelter that had been cleared for him and Set Lilly on the bed to continue sleeping, he had given her a sedative to make her sleep off the traumatising experience, leaving the shelter he left two skitarii outside the door with instructions to admit no one but himself. Corius then made his way to the Ship section to continue his exploration of it. He found the doctor to be examining the still powered cogitator that Corius had activated less than 24 hours earlier. "doctor" Corius said startling the man again "I trust your studies are going well" corius continued as though he had done nothing untoward, "y-yes, these computers" corius interrupted "Cogitators", Charles nodded "yes, yes these cogitators are indeed powerful although I am having trouble understanding what is written, tell me what language is this?" he asked turning back to the screen, "it is known as High Gothic, the First Official Language of the Imperium of Man" corius answered moving past the doctor and returning to his exploration, "quickly now doctor if you wish to learn more" corius called causing the doctor to stumble as he hurried to catch up.

"What exactly are you going to teach me?" Charles asked as he walked along side Corius, "oh a great many things doctor, but in order to do that you would be required to become part of my religion, which in turn would require you to renounce your loyalty to Atlas and your colleagues for the time being if any of them would also join us." Corius said as though he hadn't just asked the doctor to defect, something that General Ironwood did not take kindly to. "I-I couldn't possibly do that, I mean what about my research, my achievements, I can't just leave all that behind, let alone what the general would do if he found out I joined you" corius stopped and looked at Charles "what, pray tell do you mean by that, does the general have plans for me, let me guess he asked you to steal all of the information I gleam from this once proud vessel" at this Charles just nodded, corius stilled for a moment, "doctor how old do you think I am?" corius asked, Charles looked confused, "I don't know its hard to tell, I mean as far as I've seen you have almost no biological components left, and why does that matter?" corius let out a mechanical sigh, "you are old doctor, at least by this planets standard, how much longer do you expect to live 10, 20 years if the Grimm don't get you, what I offer is more life, as the Omnissiah wills it, and to answer the question I am 947 standard Imperial years old" Doctor Charles stared as Corius moved even deeper into the ship.

 **A/N: again i dont own either 40K or RWBY, this chapter was my favourite to write so far. Read and enjoy.**


	6. 00110110

Corius stood before a large imperial bulk head door, he knew what was on the other side and he felt awed to be the first in millennia to see them. The Large Bulkhead doors slowly rumbled open revealing a large open space behind them, so vast the even Corius infrared optic settings barely illuminated the space, but it was enough for him to see them, four Imperial Knight chassis, still locked in their transport docks. Of course it remained to be seen what the knights' state of repair was like but the fact that they were all armed and in one piece was reassuring. Moving into the space Corius attempted to reactivate the hanger lights, with moderate success, some flickering on and off while others blew out after such a long time of disuse.

Doctor Charles had never seen anything like it before, the hanger was massive, it could hold several large bullheads and still have room to spare and that said nothing of the other four very large occupants in the hangar. The Knights as Corius had called them put the new Atlas paladins to shame, standing somewhere near the ten metre mark, it was truly humbling to stand before such a magnificent creation. "Doctor" Corius started "you wished to see another demonstration of machine spirits yes?" Charles could only nod as he looked over the first knight that Corius had managed to climb up to the head of. Corius studied the Knight before him, identifying it as a Paladin pattern with a Battle cannon and a reaper chainsword, all of which looked to be in almost battle ready condition. Corius steadied himself and withdrew an incense burner from within his robes, lighting it he began to chant in binary, to the doctors surprise once again he did not speed up this chant at all, as Corius chanted his hands folded into the sign of the Omnissiah and he bowed his head in prayer.

Corius stayed like this over an hour, not once stopping his binary chant and the doctor had taken the time to inspect the rest of the hanger, finding the remains of several humans and the partial skeletons that were fixed to bits of machinery. It's while trying to read the inscription that was written next to the door they entered through that he heard a deep growling engine start up, turning he found the Knight Corius was praying to powering up, the lights in its head lighting up giving it a glowing glare that seemed to promise destruction of everything that stood in its way. "So doctor, did that satisfy your curiosity about my religion, or would you like another demonstration?" Corius asked, Charles shook his head no, "no that won't be necessary, but tell me if I go through with this, what will be my task, surely you need me for something specific" Corius regarded the man, and internally praised him for figuring it out on his own, "yes doctor, it has occurred to me that while I am capable of doing a great many things here on this planet, I need the assistance of others to increase the speed at which I can produce the elements need for the world coming folding into the imperium. The first task being removing the Grimm from this planet. That is where you and these knights come into the picture, to expand my army" Corius finished standing in front of the man, "the question is" Corius brought his glowing eyes level with the doctors, "are you willing to devote yourself to a higher state of being?" Corius waited for the doctor to reply.

Doctor Charles quickly tried to think of everything about his current situation, from the promise of an extended life to being involved with some of the most advanced technology he had ever even dreamed of, and it was with a nervous voice he answered "how do we start?" and Corius let out a mechanical laugh, "first we initiate you into the Cult Mechanicus, which will require you to receive augmentations" Corius turned back to the knights, "that however can wait, I have three more knights to activate." Corius strode over to the next knight and began the process again, leaving the doctor to think about his choice.

Cinder fall was angry, not just angry she was furious, the plan to invade vale had to be moved forward when a first year huntress team found out about it, and then that Mechanicus man showed up and utterly devastated the Grimm hoard. She watched the limited footage her subordinates Emerald and Mercury had filmed, the weapons he used and those of his soldiers were truly impressive, and that aircraft it decimated an elder deathstalker with just a few shots. The idea that this power was not hers is what had incensed her so, she was aware of the ultimately ill-advised plot to kidnap his so called daughter and that ended with one thug dead and another missing. She had other plans, the white fang had recently traced him to the coast of vale, his craft being seen leaving and returning several times to a remote valley far from any villages or even trade routes. This to cinder meant either he was building something or he found something, this wold have to wait as she was informed by a lowly white fang member that their raid on the vale Mechanicus facility was about to start.

Storm was wolf Faunus with pointed grey ears that sat on top his head and were currently straining for any sound as he crouched within the shadows just across the street from the rear wall of the factory, his eyes allowed him to see that the wall had razor wire running the entire perimeter, the entire place looked more like a fortress than a factory. He and several other fang members were waiting for the go ahead to sneak in and take as much tech as they could carry before detonating explosives to wreck the production capabilities of the factory. The order was given and he was running, gaining the speed needed to clear the wall with an aura enhanced jump, clearing the razor wire he landed softly hearing the others doing the same, the raiding force was made up of only five fang members but they were all experience infiltrators, ensuring the success of this operation. Storm hid behind crates that seemed to be empty but did once contain an ore of some kind, pushing that thought to the back of his mind Storm pushed deeper into the factory.

Storm froze, in front of him no more than fifteen meters from him where two of the mechanical soldiers guarding one of the doors into the factory, Storm thinking they were just dumb robots treated them as such, thinking they had just search and destroy programming he found a large piece of rubble and hurled it away from his position and towards the far wall. It appeared to work and when the Soldiers moved off to investigate he broke cover and made for the door. Reaching the door he found it to be locked and had some sort of keypad next to it but he couldn't understand any of the symbols on it, deciding he was to exposed Storm turned to get back into the cover of the shadows when movement out of the corner of his eye made him look to the left just as a rifle butt rushed at his face, he saw stars from the impact and then another blow landed and he saw nothing.

"What!" Adam Torus Shouted loudly, "what do you mean they didn't return?" he questioned angrily as the deer Faunus before him trembled with fear, "that's just it sir, they went in with no problems but didn't come back in the time allotted, and the explosives didn't go off either" at this Adam flared his aura, drew his blade and cut a table clean in half. "Find out what happened to them, they were some of our best infiltrators, I want to know how they were captured." Adam ordered having calmed down somewhat from the news. The deer Faunus scurried off to avoid any further wrath that Adam may have in store, "it seems that your use of force has failed" the figure of Cinder fall appeared in the room, "perhaps it's time for a more subtle approach" Adam scoffed, "he's more machine than man, what makes you think he'll negotiate with you" Cinder stopped and her eyes glowed orange, "Because my dear Adam, if he refuses, I'll just melt him down" and then the glow was gone and the temperature returned to normal. "Fine, but I'm not risking more men than needed, I've lost too many already with your little schemes." Adam said placing his hand on his sword hilt, Cinder just smiled and walked out the room.

Storm woke up in a dark room, so dark even his Faunus night vision failed to see any details of where he was, he vaguely managed to hear the machinery in the factory operating. He sat there in the darkness for what felt like days but very well could have been only minutes, then after an indeterminate amount of time a hidden door snapped open blinding the Faunus with the wall of light that flooded into prison cell. Storms eyes barely adjusted to the light when he was hit with a jolt of electricity as the skitarii hit him with a low powered Taser goad shock, Storm's body convulsed with the electricity running through him, suitably disabled the skitarii then grabbed him by his shirt and dragged the paralysed Faunus out of the cell and down the hall. Storm still reeling from the effects of being tasered only just managed to catch the screams that the soldier dragging him was heading towards, he fought to get his body to move, to fight and escape, he just managed to move his legs and then his arms when the skitarii threw him through a door where he rolled to a stop. Storm waited for the soldier to approach him when he leaped, reaching for the weapon he clasp his hand around the handle and tried to pull it out of its hand, but it didn't budge, fear welled up inside Storm at that moment as the Taser ignited and slammed into his stomach. It launched him across the room where he impacted the other side, the skitarii marched calmly over to the twitching Faunus and picked him up again this time dropping him onto a table, and strapping him down. Storm was really panicking now, the adrenaline flooding his system allowing his body to overcome the paralysing effects of the shock. "What the Fuck are you going to do to me!" he yelled at the skitarii, his reply was a back handed slap across the face, sending him into a daze. A mechanical voice filled the room, "begin conversion procedure" and with those words Storms fate was sealed as several figures entered the room all brandishing different sets of medical tools. The Servitors' tools descended on the Faunus, cutting and butchering as they went, the young man's screams filled the air but the occupants of the room paid it no heed and then it was silent as the now ex-White fang member passed out.

Rick Silver was surprised to see the red robed figure that approached the village centre, flanked by several of his skitarii and holding the hand of a once smaller little girl rick instantly recognised. Greeting him as he reached him rick stuck out his hand, "it's been a long time Corius, trust you have been well?" Corius accepted the hand and gave a firm shake, "yes I have been well, along with Lilly" the girl gave a quick hug to Rick who smiled and hugged her back. Kneeling down to her level he spoke to her, "you know, there are some other kids, not much younger than you just over there" he said pointing to a group of three children, two boys and a girl "why don't you go play, while me and your dad have a talk, as long as its ok with him of course" Lilly looked up and saw her father nod slightly, she hugged him and walked over to the children, two Skitarii following behind at a respective distance.

The two men watched Lilly go before Rick turn back to Corius, "so what was so important that you came all the way out here to see me?" Corius' eyes adjusted slightly, "Inside if we could" Rick nodded and the two entered the large building. Rick moved into his office and sat behind the desk, gesturing to the seat in front of it, surprising to Corius it was a large metal chair seemingly designed with him in mind, sitting he turned his attention back to Rick, "so what was it that's so important?" Rick asked again, "I wish for your help" at this Ricks eyes boggled, "what could you need help with?" Corius withdrew a small hologram projector and activated it showing a image of a Knight Paladin, "I need a Pilot, specifically a Knightly house to pilot four of these war machines" Rick just stared dumb foundered. After what seemed like an eternity, but was only about five minutes, "why me?" was all rick could say, Corius started intensely at him, "because you have the required personality and I trust you" Rick adopted c confused look, "personality?" Corius sighed, noting how often he seemed to do that on this world, "you are selfless, noble and you desire to protect civilians when they cannot do so themselves and this is what makes you eligible to bond with the Knight." Rick stilled, trying to take this new information in, he would be lying if he said he wasn't excited by the idea of piloting that Knight, but he also thought of his family, his wife and son. "What about my family?" Corius would smile if he was capable of doing so, "they would still be with you, and when he came of age, you son would either join you or if it ever happens replace you at the time of your death, which disregarding war, would not come for a long time for you and yours" Corius explained, Rick sighed thinking of everything he could not to do it and found little to counter, "what do I need to do?" Corius once again lamented not being able to smile, "Come with me."

Rick could only stare at the towering suit of armour before him, it was huge, certainly bigger that the armour that Atlas had started showing of lately. "So how do I get in?" rick asked the nearby Corius, "oh you won't be able to use it yet, I'll need to give you some Augmentations" seeing the apprehension appear on Rick he continued, "nothing major, at least nothing on my scale, you just need to be able to link your nervous system with the Knight, your body and it will become one during combat." Rick grimaced "sounds painful, but I'll still be me right?" Corius nodded "yes it is only a minor operation and no, you will be completely under, you are not some lowlife bandit, you are Remnants first Knight and you will be treated as such. You will be the first Knightly High King, your wife the queen and your son the Knight Prince, and you will have full control over your House, second only to me if you chose to swear alliance of course." Rick stared up at the Knight, "let's begin then shall we."

Rick woke up several hours later, not feeling any different, reaching around the back of his head he felt it, the new neural interface, he touched it and winced at the raw skin around the device. "Careful, the skin is still tender and will heal with time" came Corius warning as he stood nearby, "when you feel up to it I will be waiting outside" and Corius left the surgery room. Rick laid there for several moments still doubtful of his decision but decided to trust his instincts with it, leaving the room he found Corius waiting with another red robed figure, nowhere nearly as modified as Corius but had the beginnings of it, "Rick, I would like to introduce newly indoctrinated Magos Charles, he shall be your Mechanicus support for you knight along with a plethora of servitors devoted to maintaining and repairing the knight." Rick walked up to the pair and extended his hand, "it's a pleasure Magos" Rick was surprised to find not a mechanical hand but a flesh and blood one grip his hand. "The pleasure is mine, Corius has already explained my duties to me, and im excited to begin" the newly minted Magos said smiling brightly. "Yes, about that how long until I can try this bonding as you put it" Rick asked turning to Corius, "as soon as we get back to the 'Wraith' and create an opening to extract the knight from within." Corius turned and walked off the new High king and Magos following.

The Atlas archaeologists had made a good effort to expose the hanger bay doors on the exterior of the ship to allow the Knights to exit the ship. Corius, Rick and Charles all made their way into the ship to begin the process of connecting Rick to the knight, Corius left the process with Magos Charles, as he had uploaded the full process to the local noosphere for the Magos to download to his newly implanted cogitator. The magos and Rick had just started the connection process when Alfie contacted Corius over the Noosphere, " _Archmagos, There are three civilians here who wish to speak with you, they appear unarmed but we have them covered"_ Corius didn't know what to make of the message, civilians had found them in the middle of nowhere, " _I am on my way up"._ Corius exited the ship to find his squad of skitarii half encircling the three teenagers, walking up to them he spoke, "you are on Mechanicus Land, I suggest you leave before I detain you" he powered up his weapons to emphasise the threat. The dark haired woman seemed unfazed even as the other two flinched at the sight, "now why would we leave when you are here, and do you really need the weapons we just want to talk" Corius didn't like this, the thought that three random teenagers found them was just impossible, and her calm demeanour in the face of overwhelming power meant she was confident that she would win if it came to blows, unless he could dispose of them first. "I'm afraid that I have to decline, I'm in the middle of something and I'd rather not talk to you children" the girl with green hair was staring intensely at Corius, then he felt it a tingling at the back of his kind, it appeared she had a mind manipulation semblance. "You can stop trying to trick me girl it won't work" the girls eyes widened in surprise, "now I ask again leave before I force you" and as though to further reinforce his point the newly uncovered hanger doors opened slowly, drawing the eyes of the three. The door fully retracted leaving a vast empty black space, from within came giant heavy steps, and then out of the gloom strode forth the towering Knight, it stopped just behind the gathering and its War-horn blared its fury shacking the ground and forcing the teenagers to flinch at the noise. The Black haired girl's eyes flashed golden and fire shot towards Corius, and just before impact there was great flash of light blinding the three and forcing the Skitariis' eyes to auto-adjust to the flare.

The light faded and to Cinders shock and for the first time in a long time her fear, Corius was still standing and pointing every weapon at her, "you have made a great mistake" and he fired, the eradication ray striking her in the chest and instead of disintegrating she was thrown backwards. The Skitarii then fired on the other two and found them just barely dodging and then fleeing picking up their unconscious leader and running into the woods. Corius let them go, he had sent his message well enough and had new data to sift through as it seemed that some people on this planet could withstand the deadly power of the eradication ray, although it appeared to still render her unconscious. Corius turned his eyes up to the Knight, standing proud once again it proved to him and the world that the Omnissiah had truly blessed him in his time of need.

 **A/N: I dont own 40K or RWBY, Now we've moved into the space between the last episode of Vol. 2 and the First episode of Vol. 3, the war with the white fang is ramping up. Read and Enjoy**

 **Some story idea credit goes to Deeed22**


	7. 00110111

Cinder felt something soft underneath her, it felt like heaven for her extremely tired body, groggily she cracked open her eyes to see a wooden roof above her. "Cinder your awake" came the hopeful voice of Emerald, turning her head and wincing at the pain she asked "what happened?" "Well, um, you were knocked out by that Corius guy, me and Merc got you out of their but only barely, those rifles hurt, a lot." Cinder frowned she had never felt anything like it her whole body ached like she was trampled by a goliath heard, never mind that the man had withstood a full on assault from her maiden powers without a scratch to show for it. "where are we?" she asked looking around the room, seeing nothing but the bed, a small fire place and wooden table off to one side, "a small cabin just outside atlas, the previous owner didn't need it anymore" Emerald said as mercury entered through the lone door. "Yeah some old man complaining about his lawn or something" Mercury said casually laying a plate of cooked meat on the table. Cinder stared at the plate raising an eyebrow, "it was all I could find" was Mercury's answer to her unasked question.

It took several days for Cinder to fully recover from her injuries, and when she did she ordered a White Fang Bullhead to come pick them up and take her back to vale. Upon arriving she asked for Adam to meet her in her Quarters and then shut herself away, she had never been so helpless before, she had hit Corius with a powerful blast and he took it like nothing, and now he also has a giant robot under his command, and that made her angry all that power was to be hers just as Salem said it would but this man defied her. She would make him pay for humiliating her, Adam Walked into the room to find Cinder scowling like a feral beast, "so I take it talking didn't work?" he asked sarcastically, but flinched when she looked to him. "No it did not, I want him gone, I don't care how many troops you throw at him he needs to be removed before the Vytal Festival." Adam glared at Cinder, "why should I sacrifice more men for your cause, you said you would help us kill the humans in vale, not fight some brand new war you want us to get involved with" Cinder lost her composer for a minute and growled low in her throat, "you will obey, or do I need to find a replacement for you" she flared her power flames spring up all around Adam.

Magos Charles finished the bonding procedure hooking Rick into the Knight chassis, and then all rick could see was black. Rick could only see black in every direction, momentarily he thought perhaps the bonding had killed him and he had entered some sort of limbo, but then there was a flash behind him. Turning he came face to face with an older looking man dressed in a military uniform with what he realised what's the same symbol as was on the Knight, "what's going on?" he asked aloud. "You are in the Machine spirit of this Knight" the man answered, "why, who are you, I thought I would be piloting the knight?" Rick asked confused, "you would wish for this power to be so easy, I trained for years to be worthy of this machine, what makes you think you are worthy" the figure asked as a landscape started to form, it showed a barren wasteland with two incredibly large armies facing off, one rick could see was human the other looked like a giant green mass of howling and roaring monsters with a mess of ramshackle vehicles and other constructs he could not even fathom. "What is this?" the man stood beside him, "this is the last battle we fought" and suddenly rick was inside a Knight and he watched from the eyes of the pilot as the machine charged alongside others with a swarm of soldiers at his feet. "Although we won" the scene shifted to a view of a fierce battle between two knights, one coloured similar to Ricks and the other was rusted and seemed to have all manner of gore and body parts on spikes.

The corrupt knight slew the other, and then Rick felt his knight lurch forward, a howl announcing his charge, he reached the evil knight and swung his chainsword, the teeth bit and started to shred the torso of the knight, bits of gore and oil flying to splatter the ground and ricks knight. The Enemy knight fired its shoulder heavy stubber into ricks face, but his ion shield flared absorbing the damage, allowing him to strike again with the chainsword, severing the battle cannon and cutting deep into the knight, withdrawing the blade Rick then felt himself slam it straight into the enemy knight's head killing the corrupt pilot. Rick was then back in the black void with both the pilot and the knight towering above them. "How would I prove myself worthy of that?" Rick asked both pilot and knight, "You will prove nothing, your memories however will." Rick felt a presence in his mind and then he was standing back in his village, watching a small silver hair boy protecting a younger cat Faunus girl from bullies, He remembered that well, the girl had just wanted a friend to play with, but the boys she asked had just pushed her into the mud and laughed when he intervened, "you protect the innocent even when it cost you" the scene changed to him as a young man when the village was going through a period of famine, it showed him giving half his limited ration to a young boy, "you are selfless in all your being, again it changed to six years ago when he first met Corius, it showed him fighting the Grimm even as the others fell, "and you are strong and courageous" finally he returned to the void, "rejoice Rick Silver we have determined you to be worthy, remember to always be kind, just courageous and above all Honourable, _Invictus Strider_ now passes from House Wentort to House Silver, to be Piloted by Rick Silver first of his name."

Rick thought back to that first connection, for him it cemented the correctness of his choice. After the incident with the three teenagers he had found talking to Corius one of Atlas large air ships had arrived and he was informed that Corius had 'borrowed' one from Ironwood. Rick drove the _Invictus_ into the hold were it was secured for transport to the Atlas Forge. Arriving, Rick was astounded to see the size that the Manufactorum had reached, and he realised that the large Building at the rear had His emblem on it, A double headed axe with angel wings, he realised that was to be his new home, and the home of his House. Rick looked upon the _Invictus strider_ with pride, now freshly painted in his new house colours, a dull silver and deep red, with the emblem emblazoned on the herald shield. "It is truly an awe inspiring sight is it not" Corius spoke from slightly behind Rick, without turning Rick responded, "yes, yes it is, Corius I must thank you for this, its just so overwhelming." Corius nodded slightly, "all I ask is that when I call you will answer" Rick turned fully, and made the sign of the Omnissiah, "you have my word that when the Mechanicus calls, House silver will answer." Corius made the sign back, and then departed leaving the new High King to his duties.

Ozpin watched as the Amity Colosseum moved into position over beacon, he was looking forward to this year's festival, he was keen to see just how far teams RWBY and JNPR had come since the start of the year. He was soon joined in his office by Ironwood who seemed less than pleased, "Oz I have something to show you," Ozpin turned away from the view to find Ironwood handing him a scroll. Ozpin watched and was amazed at the sight on the screen showing Rick piloting his new knight onto an Atlas Airship, "what is it?' he asked ironwood who shrugged, "I don't know, none of the scientist would tell the crew of my specialist anything about them, thought they did mention an incident that occurred" the video on the screen changed to show Corius and his skitarii surrounding three teenagers, though the video was of low quality seemingly filmed from a fare distance, the was the unmistakable flash of the maidens power and then another even brighter flash when the flames struck Corius, then as the video adjusted back to normal Ozpin just caught the glimpse of the three figures retreating and Corius standing there unharmed. "Have you spoken to him about any of this?" Ozpin asked handing the scroll back to Ironwood, "no he refuses to answer my calls, I was hoping you would have better luck." The general admitted.

Ozpin stared at screen on his desk trying for the fifth time to reach Corius, he was just about to end the call when the call connected and Corius' 'face' appeared on the screen. "Ozpin, what is it that's so important that you must disturb me?" Corius asked the irritation evident in his tone, as he spoke Ozpin sent a copy of the video that Ironwood had shown Ozpin, "this is why I have called, concerning not just your acquisition of a powerful tool of war but also the three people you encountered" Corius multiple eyes adjusted and changed focuses "what is the problem, and before you respond take heed that I will not surrender any of the Knights to you or Ironwood." Ozpin sighed but he should have expected this. "the issue is with the three people, the one that attacked you looks like it might have been the one that stole the fall maidens powers not too long ago, and I also wish to ask how you made them retreat, even at partial strength the maidens are beyond powerful" Corius let out a laugh, "powerful, she went down with one hit from my eradication ray, though I admit she was not disintegrated but merely knocked out, which has proved a suspicion of mine but she still went down and the other two hauled her off." Ozpin gaped, it was unbelievable, not only had Corius somehow survived a direct hit from the maiden power but he also knocked out the woman in one hit. "How did you survive her attack, all the video shows is a bright flash?" Ozpin finally asked, "Oh that, that was my conversion field, prevents most damage from reaching me" Corius said casually as though it was no big deal. It was now that Ozpin realised that if remnant as a whole had access to this level of technology then it would be a blood bath, with no clear winner, for once he was glad for Corius' adamant refusal to release his higher end technology, and he was glad that he was mostly on his side in the secret war.

Corius terminated the call with Ozpin and turned back to his work, in front of him stood ten brand new Sicarian Infiltrators, all armed with Flechette blasters and Taser Goads. Corius had finally managed to find a white fang base, and while small it would be the perfect opportunity to launch his first counter to the Fangs activities, the base was located outside of vale and seemed to be a small recon station. The force of ten infiltrators would be dropped off well outside visual or even hearing range of the base and make their way to it on foot, before wiping it out completely.

SIAP-01 watched as his squad prepared themselves in the back of the Olympus, each going through their pre-battle blessings and oaths. The Olympus lowered down to the tree tops as the embarkation ramp lowered and SIAP-01 was the first out, landing nimbly on the ground, blaster up and scanning for targets, seeing none he ordered the rest of the squad down. Using their superior communications and sight the squad had spread out over a 150 metre area as they approached, the outer squad members would encircle the base before the strike was launched.

SIAP-01 watched through the eyes of his squad members as they got into position around the camp, there was an incident with SIA-05 when a dog Faunus stumbled into it, but was quickly silenced by the unit. The Squad encircled the small base without further incident and were ready for the attack order. SIAP-01 sent a status update back to the Archmagos and then after 30 seconds received the go ahead. As one the Infiltrators activated their White noise generators and charged the base. SIAP-01 blasted the first Fang member he saw, shredding his aura and tearing grate chunks out of his body, the next was downed by a lethal shock from the Taser goad. This scene was repeated throughout the base as the Infiltrators tore the place to pieces, and when the final Faunus fell they retreated leaving no trace of ever being there.

Adam was starting to doubt whether he could win the fight against the Mechanicus, he had just arrived at one of the recon bases that were set up around Vale at the moment and what he saw actually made him sick. Limbs were strewn about, some had large burn marks on their bodies, all around it painted a grisly picture, and from the positions of most of the Dead Faunus it appeared they were caught unawares, which begged the question, what could sneak up on a camp of veteran Faunus scouts. Adam watched as other Fang members started to clear away the bodies and take them to be buried, he decided then and there that if he ever found Corius Gage he would make him suffer a slow and painful death before killing him and the rest of his army.

Corius was extremely pleased with the results the new Infiltrator squad achieved, a total annihilation with no casualties. The Army had come a long way in the last few weeks especially now that the growing vats had started to produce their first batch of full grown bodies ready to be made into skitarii and any other force required. He now possessed well over one hundred skitarii and 9 dunecrawlers to support them, as well as the new Infiltrators with more on the way and with the support of House Silver, no force on remnant would be able to stop him, he will destroy the white fang and he will wipe out the Grimm or any other threat that dared harm His planet. "it truly is a wonder sight" Rick Silver said coming to stand beside Corius, Below them stood the half assembled force Corius commanded the other half residing within vale at the moment. "it truly is, the Omnissiah has blessed us" Corius made the Cog of the Omnissiah followed by Rick. "I leave for Vale in three days, Ozpin has asked me to attend and Lilly also wishes to see it, will you join us?" Corius asked, Rick smiled "my family would love to, I take it we will take the Olympus?" Rick questioned, "No your family and Lilly will take a more luxurious craft" he gestured over in the distance and parked next to the Olympus was a very large version of a bullhead, detailed in red and silver with both the Mechanicus skull and the house silver herald.

 **A/N: again i dont own 40K or RWBY, next update will begin the events of Vol. 3 with more Fang vs. Mechanicus fights spread amongst it. Credit goes to Deeed22 for Story ideas and the Name of the Imperial Knight. read and Enjoy.**


	8. 00111000

01100101 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100

Rick watched from the back of the Bullhead as His son Rusty and Corius daughter Lilly talked quietly, while it wasn't their first time meeting each other they seemed to still be a bit shy around each other. His son Rusty Silver, was the spitting image of Rick at his age, same silver hair and even the same piercing green eyes, his wife Carmine in contrast to both of them had vibrant red hair and the soft caring blue eyes only a mother could have, Carmine was incredibly beautiful, and in her younger years before she met Rick she had modelled for a few clothing companies. Now in her mid-thirties she still had her good looks but they were now tempered by her experiences in life. While she adored and absolutely loved her son, she had always wanted a daughter of her own, so when she first saw Lilly standing in a bright pink sundress waiting to depart for Vale she immediately scooped her up with to Ricks surprise a squeal he hadn't heard her make for some time and Lilly had loved it, and it occurred to Rick that Lilly had not had a proper mother figure in her life for some time, he wold bring it up with Corius when he had the chance.

Looking out the window rick could see the Olympus as it flew escort for the bullhead, on board were two squads of skitarii, while on board the Bullhead sat a further ten, though they were well out of the way. Rick could see the sense in it after Corius explained the threat that the White Fang would start to present to him and his family alongside the Mechanicus. The children made surprised and awed sounds from the front and rick aw them looking out the windows, looking further ahead he could see why their excitement was peaked, the Amity Colosseum was floating high in the sky above beacon academy.

The bullhead and Olympus landed at one of the large landing pads at beacon, where they would be staying for their time at the festival. The Skitarii exited the transport followed by the two kids who gawked at everything, then Rick and Carmine stepped out, and where hit by the sounds of the already on going festival. "ok, I need to go with Corius," rick said turning to Carmine, "why don't you and the kids go see the festival, I'll find you when im done," rick kissed her lightly, "ok darling, just don't be too long this is meant to be a festival, try to enjoy it." Carmine replied as she rounded up the two kids and left with a skitarii escort following them.

Corius then made it to rick as the two men turned to entre beacon, "before we meet Ozpin, I have something I wish to discuss" Corius said as he slowed his pace to match the slightly shorter man, "what is it, and please remember to speak in simpler terms this time." Rick joked but turned serious when Corius didn't reply. "I am going to form a fifth Kingdom, with you at the head" Corius cut straight to the point, causing rick to stumble. "What, you want to make a new Kingdom, and then put me at the head, why, I thought you wanted the planet?" Rick questioned his head spinning from the sudden proposal of power. "Oh I still do, but I've found in my experience that when a planet is returned to the imperium that it is better to have a more normal looking human in charge of the public display." Rick was confused slightly by this, "so I would be a puppet leader then" Corius looked straight at rick, "No, you would have full control over the populace, the difference would be that I have control over the standing Mechanicus Army and that you inform me of any governmental changes you implement." Rick was still reeling, to have his own Kingdom, he supposed it would be like being in charge of the village again but on a larger scale.

"Where is it going to be located?" he asked as they walked through the halls of beacon. "I already have the beginnings built on the Dragon continent to the north, and when the announcement is made all facilities will be moved from atlas to the new Kingdom of  
Reliquiae" Rick stopped, "what does that mean, "Oh right you have yet to master High Gothic, it means Remnant."

The two men entered into Ozpins Office, Corius was silently pleased with the new Elevator and thus blessed the simple machine spirit within, inside the office stood Ozpin, Ironwood Glynda. "Corius, I'll have to ask that your friend leave we have matters to discuss," Ozpin asked but neither man made to leave. "I'd watch your tone Ozpin, this is Rick Silver, newly Inducted High King to House Silver and soon to be ruler of a new Fifth Kingdom and as such he has as much if not more right to be here than me." None of the other occupants of the room new what to say.

The silence was broken by the general, "wait did you say Fifth Kingdom, when did that happen?" he asked, Corius looked at ironwood, "why general, I would have thought with all your surveillance attempts on me you would have found out something this large was taking place." Corius said with barely a hint of smugness lacing his voice. Ironwood sputtered trying to find and excuse but came up with nothing, Ozpin directed the conversation back to the matter at hand. "Corius, why would you try and make a Fifth Kingdom, and where have you put it?" Corius stepped forwards and placed his hand on Ozpins desk, the screens flashed up to display an image of the dragon continent in the north, it then centred in on the 'tail' of the dragon, "this is where the kingdom is to be based, as of right now, the basic infrastructure is built, all we need now are citizens to move in."

"And how do you expect to entice anyone from the other kingdoms that yours is a better place to live." Ironwood scoffed. "Simple, first all Faunus will have equal rights, any violation of this will result in punishment equal to the crime." Corius started, Rick then joined the conversation, "and the quality of life will be much better, with free power provided to any working house hold, guaranteed jobs for every of age citizen, plus the protection of House Silver and the Mechanicus." The screens flashed to show a parade ground containing hundreds of Skitarii and behind them scores of dunecrawlers and towering above them all was _Invictus Strider._

Ironwood had heard enough, "this is just a plot to take over Atlas isn't it" he accused. "no General it is not, it is simply our plan to spread the dominance of Humanity on this planet, by claiming the dragon continent we can reduce the amount of Grimm populating the areas around the other Kingdoms." Ozpin was intrigued by this "how so?" The screens changed to show a wide map of Remnant with red dots overlaid, "I was not lax over by years here, one thing I have found in studying the Grimm is the tendency to congregate around population densities" the map then had green dots overlaid, the largest centred on the four current Kingdoms, "it seems they have some hidden ability to trace the largest groups of civilisation which is why they so adamantly try to take over the kingdoms despite the sheer number of losses." Ozpin frowned, "that still doesn't explain why small settlements are routinely lost." The map changed again and this time the image was moving, the small red dots moving in small leaps. "when I first arrived I noticed that the Grimm give off a small amount of radiation, for the first year I retrofitted the Olympus to pick up this radiation and had it monitor the planet from low orbit" Corius ignored the surprised expressions about him being in space, "and I found that for every village lost, it is merely because they are in the way of a large scale migration, now I thought that I could use this to track their point of origin, but that was not to be, as I stands the Grimm only appear in locations devoid of human settlement and then push towards the highest concentration of people."

The room was once again silent, the screens went blank as Corius withdrew his hand, "odd" at this everyone looked to him, "Corius, what's wrong" Rick asked. "It appears there is a virus attempting to infiltrate my network" at the concerned looks he dismissed them, "it is nothing to me, what is more pressing is that it came from you cogitators Ozpin, though it does not originate from it." Pressing his hand to the desk once more Corius will his consciousness into the primitive Noosphere, he found the virus, hidden in plain sight throughout Vale's network, he eliminated any trace he came across, until he reached the Vale CCTS and with a flex of his cogitating might he crushed the virus completely. Corius retreated to his body and withdrew the hand, "it has been expunged".

"Thank you Corius, do you know what it was doing?" Ozpin asked after Corius finished, "it was in every device connected to the CCTS, I have eliminated all of them, it seemed to for the moment be watching, granting outside access to whomever created it, and given time I believe it would have been used to take control." Corius explained, "Take control, of what?" Ironwood asked. "Your primitive robots, your ships, the Colosseum, everything." Corius tuned to the two headmasters, "you would do well to increase security at the CCTS, no doubt they will try again." Both Headmasters agreed to do just that, "now, back to your findings, this information could change our fight against the Grimm, knowing where Grimm are spawning and which village is going to be attacked next will be a major boon to our society." Ozpin said already concocting ways to put this to use. "Agreed ozpin, however it will still take me several more months to produce an accurate and stable device to monitor the Grimm, I will have it done." Corius said, and seeing nothing further to discuss at that moment to two men left.

Lilly bounced in her seat as she watched her favourite team, Team RWBY, fight against team ARBN in the opening rounds of the tournament. She cheered when Weiss knocked one of the boys away from Ruby, next to her Rusty cheered as well, simply going along with Lilly in which team to follow. Carmine sat calmly only half following the fight as she had next to no combat experience, looking at the screen showing the aura metres it wasn't clear who had the advantage to her. The fight went on for another few minutes, until an impressive display of teamwork lead to team RWBY knocking the last three members of ARBN out of the Arena earning them the victory and a pass to the doubles round. "Mrs Silver can me and Rusty go say hello to RWBY please?" Lilly asked the older woman, who smiled "of course, just be careful ok" Lilly and Rusty smiled brightly and hurried out of the arena to track down the Team of teenagers, four skitarii following, leaving six with Carmine.

The two children found team RWBY in the festival food stalls, Lilly spotted Weiss and ran up and hugged her waist. "Ah, Lilly you're here, I'm glad you could make it" Weiss said hugging the small girl, Yang walked up and lifted Lilly to her shoulders, and noticed Rusty standing just nearby, "who's your friend Lilly, he's such a cutie" as yang said this Lilly blushed but thankfully no one saw it. "Yeah that's Rusty, his dad is friends with mine" Lilly said as Rusty shyly walked up to the girls. Weiss kneeled down to his height, "hello, I'm Weiss" she greeted, and Rusty's face lit up in recognition, "Oh you're the Princess Lilly keeps talking about, she's right you are pretty" this caused Weiss to Blush and everyone else to laugh, confusing two kids. "Even kids are trying to get with the Ice Queen, I just don't get it" Yang commented dryly, causing Weiss to splutter in indignation. "Don't call me that" she yelled at the blonde.

The Little argument was interrupted by Emerald, "well you all seem lively so soon after a fight", the group turned to the new comer, Yang taking Lilly off her shoulders, "yes well we are just excited to make it to the pairs tournament" ruby said for the team. "oh, who is fighting that" Emerald asked seeming incredibly interested, "well as leader" Weiss interrupted her "We put it to a vote" Ruby recovered and continued "as leader we I decided to put it to a vote" Blake then said her piece "its Weiss and Yang", Emerald smiled, "cool, me and Merc are going ahead as well."

Ruby then had an idea, "oh I know, why don't we all go get victory food together", Emerald smiled "I would but my team" she looked behind her to see Mercury smelling a boot "yeah, they're all kind of introverted, really socially awkward" the girls looking as well cringed, "yeah I could see that" yang commented sounding almost disgusted. Emerald waved it off, "well you guys enjoy that, I'm going to try and round them up" and she left waving to ruby as she went. The four girls turned back around to go the way they were going to find the four Skitarii surrounding them, Yang asked the question the others were thinking, "Um, what's going on?" Lilly went up to one, "Alfie what's wrong?" Alfie turned to Lilly, "nothing for you to worry about little one, everything is fine now" and with that cryptic comment the Skitarii stepped back to their original escorting positions.

The odd group of teenagers and kids eventually made their way back to the Colosseum after having lunch with team JNPR. Team RWBY moved to take some of the seats in the open seating, when they noticed the two kids moving off in the direction of the VIP boxes with Yang calling out, "were are you two going?", the pair stopped, and with Rusty being the shy one Lilly had to answer "Rusty's mum is up there and I think our dads should be to." The four teenage girls looked up towards the Box seats but due to the tinting they couldn't tell. "Would you like to come up, I'm sure dad won't mind" Lilly suggested, to which Weiss readily accepted as she was used to being within that circle of people. On the way up ruby asked Rusty, "so what does your dad do that got him VIP seats?" Rusty struggled for a moment trying and failing to work out an explanation, Lilly thankfully came to his rescue, "Dad said that he now pilots a Knight, it's really, really big to, and his dad is now a king." The explanation just confused the four girls.

The Four girls followed the kids up to the room, finding the double door guarded by two more Skitarii, who at an unspoken command opened the doors to allow the large group to enter. The stepped in and the kids ran to their respective parents, which was still an odd sight to see Lilly run up to a 'giant Grimm killing machine' as Ruby had called him. Rick turned to regard the four teens that waited awkwardly by the door, "Hello, you must be Team RWBY, Lilly has told us so much about you" Rick said stepping forward extending his hand, and Weiss reacting on years of ingrained etiquette raised her hand for him, without missing a beat he took her hand gently and planted a soft kiss across her knuckles. Realising what had happened Weiss blushed furiously as her teammates snickered, "oh I do apologise if I embarrassed you Mrs Schnee, Corius has Carmine drilling every bit of etiquette into my head." At this Carmine came to stand next to Rick, "my, my they are just a pretty as Lilly said" this caused all four to Blush, "please join us, it was starting to feel a little empty in here with just us five." Carmine said seeming to ignore the presence of the Skitarii.

The group of parents, kids and teens all watched Team JNPR fight against Team BRNZ from shade academy, with the teens and kids cheering along with the crowd. It started off fairly even sided considering that JNPR had the world renowned Pyrrah Nikos on the team. Ultimately the fight ended rather anticlimactically with Nora sending all four opposing fighters out of the arena with one hit. "And that concludes, what, um ok" came Professor Ports voice over the speakers, "it appears Ladies and Gentlemen, that we have an unexpected announcement to be made." In the VIP box Rick and Corius both Stood up and head for the door, confusing team RWBY, "what's so important that they left before whatever announcement this is" Ruby asked but Carmine just smiled and indicated the giant view screen.

After a few moments of no activity some people in the audience were about to leave when the screen turned to static before Rick and Corius both appeared on the screen, this scene played out all over remnant, "Hello Remnant, I am Rick Silver and with me is Corius Gage, who many of you will know as the owner of Mechanicus. We stand before you today as a momentous occasion is occurring, you all know of the four Kingdoms Vale Atlas Mistral and Vacuo, today however we are here to announce a new Kingdom." Murmurs broke out amongst the crowd, "This Kingdom shall be known as Reliquiae, now a lot of you must be wondering why we are doing this, and it's simple we believe that instead of hiding behind our walls and waiting for our doom, we are taking the doom to the Grimm, Already Mechanicus has set up the infrastructure to begin this city, all it needs now is you, anyone willing for a new start, more protection or even a new adventure." The screen changed to a recording of Corius and the skitarii fighting in Vale, "those of you who were in vale just over a month ago witnessed the first invasion of the city in many years, and was thanks to Corius and his Skitarii along with some huntsmen teams from beacon that vale did not fall. And I bet many of you are wondering what we can offer that the other kingdoms can't, well its simple, free power to any home, full protection from Grimm or any other threat to remnant and equal rights to any and all Faunus who should chose to live in Reliquiae." This caused the biggest reaction from the crowd and from remnant, "and any business or person found abusing these rights shall be punished appropriately, I Rick Silver of Knight House Silver Promise this." Rick stepped to the side as Corius addressed the world, "Alongside this announcement Mechanicus is releasing to the public, under certain restrictions a new weapon to combat the Grimm" a picture of a Lazrifle appeared, "this is a direct energy weapon, known as the Lazrifle, it fires a high powered beam of light that pierces through Grimm bone and flesh alike, these of course will have priority to any Reliquiae citizens and then to the rest of the kingdom, and I urge the White Fang, cease your fighting and join the fight against the Grimm, otherwise we are all doomed, the world is ours, all we have to do is take it from them." The screen cut out showing the House silver Herald.

 **A/N: i don't own 40k or RWBY.**

 **so now the true plan comes forth, a kingdom of remnant, how will the world react to this monumental shift. Read and enjoy.**


	9. 00111001

**A/N: I dont own 40k or RWBY, Read and enjoy as we get closer to the end of Volume 3.**

Cinder was furious, someone had managed to completely wipe the queen virus from not just Ozpin's office but the entire Vale network, hindering and delaying her plans. To top it of Corius Gage and an unknown player had just announced the formation of a Fifth Kingdom. Cinder had a good idea who had removed the virus, and it just fuel her rage that he continued to thwart her at every turn, the white fang had failed to gain any advantage, and he had absolutely refused her offer, this left the only option being to remove him completely but had proven able to withstand her power while she barely even scratched him. All of this meant she would have to try and find another way to infiltrate the network as Emerald and Mercury had reported that General Ironwood had increased security at the CCTS.

Elsewhere in the kingdom, a Bullhead soared low over the treetops of forever fall forest, within sat the Infiltrator squad. SIAP-01 watched yet again his now veteran squad of Infiltrators prepared for the mission ahead, this time hitting a supply base for the White Fang. The Bullhead came in hard, swinging around the side doors opening above a basic prefab shelter, SIAP-01 leaped out followed by the rest of the squad their white noise generators already blaring. SIAP-01 crashed through the roof of the building landing with a crunch on an unsuspecting Faunus, his flechett blaster tore through the other fang members' pitiful aura and shredding her chest cavity to mincemeat. SIAP-01's HUD then displayed a call for help from one of the other units, it seemed a Fang member was able to withstand the audio onslaught and was highly skilled fending off two of the infiltrators attacks.

SIAP-01 rushed outside into the carnage being unleased, seeing the Faunus being slaughtered, while a supply cache was engulfed in a bright ball of fire. Navigating through the battle he quickly found the units that requested aid. Before them was the largest Faunus they had encountered thus far, though it appeared the man had had both sets of ears hacked off, explaining how he could withstand the debilitating noise. SIAP-01 rushed forward, Taser goad igniting and swung it at the man's legs, show a grace his body should not have been able to do. The man jumped into the air and brought his sword down hard onto SIU-05 separating one its arms in a shower of sparks. SIAP-01 pressed his attack, an extra pair of limbs making themselves known as he assailed the man, overwhelming him and breaking his aura before unloading a magazine of flechett's into the man. The Squad of infiltrators destroyed everything, leaving nothing for the White Fang to recover leaving only burnt out husks and ash.

Corius walked into Ozpin's office to find Ozpin Glynda and ironwood along with two others he did not know. "I was under the impression this was a private meeting" Corius stated interrupting the argument the two new comers were, "It is she was just leaving" Ironwood said turning to Winter Schnee, "But sir" ironwood interrupted, "that's an order Winter".

Corius watched the woman, Winter, leave and then turned to other new face, "and who is this" he said starring at Qrow. "well hello to you to" Qrow said back his voice still slurring, "Qrow here is our for lack of a better term 'scout' he has been responsible for all our intel regarding the queens movement." Ozpin informed. "and may I ask, where is Rick, I assumed he would be here?" Ozpin questioned, "a Village contacted Mechanicus asking for aid and transport to Reliquiae, he has left to provide safe transport for our first citizens" Corius said proudly, Ozpin nodded "you seem to have this all planned out" Corius smiled in his head, "more than you realize".

"so what was the point of this meeting, or was this a social calling" Corius remarked, Ozpin sighed. "Qrow has found some disturbing news, the perpetrator of the attack on the maiden is here in Vale" everyone grew grim faced, Corius digested this information, it explained why Alfie had reported seeing a woman similar to the one that tried to alter his mind. "the same one that Attacked me?" Corius asked for confirmation, "we believe so yes" Ozpin replied. "this is troublesome, my Alpha reported that someone similar to one of those children, specifically one that can alter minds."

"How do you know this?" Ironwood asked getting evermore concerned, "because she tried it on me, but it seems she can't alter my cogitators, so she failed." Corius answered. "how do you know she didn't just make you think that?" this time Qrow spoke up, "Where im from we have Psykers, they act much like semblances but nowhere near as diverse but much more devastating, I have several implants to limit the effectiveness of them against me." The huntsmen didn't know what to think, "is it possible she is one of these 'Psykers'" Glynda asked. "No, it is definably her semblance, one of the main give aways for Psykic attacks are the smell of ozone and the purple eldritch energies of the warp." Corius explained. "and seeing as Chaos has not overrun the planet I doubt that there are any Psykers here at all."

"I'm afraid we have digressed to far; the original point was to discuss about maiden." Ozpin said getting everyone's attention once again. "the fact of the matter is, we still need to find a replacement, Amber is dying and with the one responsible here we cannot delay." Ozpin explained the situation. "do you have anyone in mind?" Qrow asked, Ozpin smiled "I do in deed, she may be our only chance."

A large Airship flew out and away from Reliquiae, powering full speed away from the city towards a remote location south of Vale. Rick stood on the bridge watching the scenery pass by, he was on his way to pick up civilians from a small village that expressed interest on coming to Reliquiae, he had a small Skitarii contingent loaded for security along with _Invictus Strider_ if any real threat presented itself, and Rick sincerely hoped he wouldn't need to. As luck, would have it the Aid that the village had requested was not for military support but for food and medical supplies, the village had apparently suffered from a famine, so Rick had ordered all rations to be given to the villagers, he himself distributing a few boxes among the hungry civilians. With little trouble the Civilians then started to trickle onto the Ship, none bringing anything larger than a suitcase, Rick had found out that the reason for the famine was a small Grimm attack had destroyed the food stores and moist of the faming land had burned during the attack. The full evacuation was going to take some time but Rick watched as every single villager walked aboard, while the Skitarii and two Dunecrawlers assured of no attack from Grimm.

A Shot rang out in the calm of the evacuation, followed by more as the Skitarii opened up on the Grimm charging the Evacuation site. Cursing under his breath Rick hurriedly run up the boarding ramp and into the cargo hold. Inside was the proud form of _Invictus Strider_ calling out Rick yelled "Magos Charles, Get the Throne prepped we have company!" Magos Charles hearing the order and seeing the flood of reports from the skitarii worked as fast as possible to get the _Invictus_ ready. Several Minutes later as the fight waged on the Civilians now hurried to get aboard the _Invictus Strider_ came to life.

The Knight strode forward, its war horn blaring eagerness to fight, stepping out of the Ship Rick saw the carnage, the Dunecrawlers fought together, surrounded by the skitarii who were formed in tight ranks to increase their effective fire. Rick felt the spirit of the _Invictus_ and together they waded into battle. The Battle cannon roared its fury, sending massive shells of death into the hoard killing dozens of the creatures before they swelled again and pushed harder. It was truly a sight to behold, the Skitarii decimating any Grimm that got close while the Knight rained death down of the dark creatures. A few civilians stood at the cargo door filming the scene.

The Grimm hoard suddenly stopped attacking and it was felt in the ground, a deep vibration rumbling through the dirt. Out of the hoard stopped a truly massive Grimm, it towered above the hoard, standing only just shorter than the Knight. Walking on four legs it resembled a Goliath, but had several differences, the main one being the massive bone cannon like protrusion on the back of it, and was covered in giant thick bone plates. Rick could feel the Invictus hate for the thing flow through his own body, before they could do anything about it the cannon on the back of the creature glowed a sickly yellow and then a yellow beam lanced out of the cannon striking the _Invictus'_ Ion shield. Rick willed the knight into a charge, crushing the unlucky Grimm underfoot. The Grimm tried to get another shot charged but it was too late as Rick reached it, chainsword revving he swung bitting deep into its flesh. The Grimm swung its armoured head up forcing Rick back, he unloaded rounds from his own cannon, shattering several plates and blowing of chunks of its body, yet it still fought. It charged a shot from its cannon and fired, moving quickly Rick moved the knight out of the line of fire.

The Fight continued in this fashion, the Grimm had started to tire, clearly not used to anything lasting this long against its power, while Rick and _Invictus_ continued to fight. Eventually Rick was able to knock the beast over onto its side and he drove the whirring chainsword into its heart. With the giant beast dead, the other Grimm, against all known reason retreated fleeing the village. Rick stayed on guard waiting for another charge or an attack from a different angle, but none came, and when the villagers were finally loaded Rick finally ordered the Skitarii to load up and then he did the same, it would mark the first-time Remnant saw the power of House Silver.

The scene was played all over remnant to any device able, the shocking and awe inspiring power of the Knight of House Silver. Ozpin only payed half attention to the Knight the rest of his focus was on the Grimm it was fighting, Ozpin had never seen anything like it in his life as a huntsman, and that did not bode well. It indicated that the Grimm were evolving stronger forms, which if left uncheck would probably spell doom for the kingdoms. He would ask Rick about his experience when he next saw the man, until then he busied himself with the various videos recorded of the fight. Remnants opinion of the footage was slightly different with many praising the man as a hero and a few even contemplating moving to Reliquiae if this was what would be defending them, not even atlas could promise that.

Corius was pleased, the _Invictus Strider's_ first taste of combat in millennia when well with barely any damage sustained while utterly decimating the Grimm, with the bonus of showing the world the combined might of House silver and the Mechanicus. Not only had the incident gained the villagers involved to join Reliquiae but a portion of Vale citizens had expressed interest after the footage was broad cast across the globe. As of now he would sit and wait, idly studying the fight below him, between a Yang Xiao Long and Mercury Black, his attention was then fully brought to the fight as the fight ended, declaring Yang the winner, but then as she walked past the downed Mercury she sent a blast into his leg.

The crowd booed and roared in anger at the actions of the blond, several Atlas 'Knights' and soldiers surrounding Yang and asking her to surrender. It was then Emerald entered the arena and ran to Mercury's side, Corius realised immediately what had occurred and he felt his artificial blood boil with rage, as the 'stricken' student was carried off and Yang escorted away, Corius stormed off. He rushed through the walkways of the colosseum looking for the poor excuses of people and as he passed a loading bay he spotted a medical bullhead pulling away at full speed.

Corius tracked down General Ironwood, and found him in the Dorm room of team RWBY, Lilly had followed him along the way, without even waiting or knocking he entered the room. The conversation stopped, the silence broken only by Lilly's soft footfalls approaching Yang, "She is innocent" was all Corius said, "how can you be sure?" questioned Ironwood. "the Boy and the Girl, where part of the trio that attacked me in the valley, I tracked them down when they rushed off, but they escaped in a medical bullhead." Yang was speechless, without even knowing her Corius had come out a just declared her innocence. "how do you know I'm innocent?" she asked, Corius turned his attention to her, "the girl, she can alter the perception of the mind, she most likely made you think he was attacking you, and the boy has artificial legs, your punch wouldn't have hurt him." Corius explained to the now very confused girl.

General Ironwood sighed, "be that as it may, the world saw you attack a defenceless student, unfortunately this means Team RWBY is disqualified from the tournament." And with that he marched out of the Room. Coriu8s waited for Ironwood to leave before continuing, "Now girls, I've read your files, and it seems you all have commendable skills and seem to have a penchant for being at the right place at the right time to try and prevent disaster," at this the girls all perked up, "but make no mistake, these three," Corius held up a data slate show Cinder, Emerald and Mercury, "they are out of your league, should you see them again you must report them, do not engage, run as fast as you can and finds one of my Skitarii, myself or Rick Silver, we will handle it from there." Getting quiet affirmatives to his response Corius left the room to begin organising a search for the fugitives.

Corius having left Team RWBY to whatever they were doing, went to track Ironwood down as he had an urgent matter to speak with him about. Corius found Ironwood just before he entered the Stadium proper, "Ironwood, I would talk with you about something" Ironwood turned to Corius, unfazed as his tone of voice didn't indicate anything wrong, "yes what is it?" Ironwood asked. Corius' posture immediately changed to a more aggressive look, "you have an Abominable Intelligence, I am asking you to destroy it." Ironwood looked stunned, "What? What do you mean Abominable Intelligence?" he questioned almost panicky, instead of answering Corius pointed one finger out to the Arena Floor, where Pyrrah Nikos and Penny Pollendina where about to face off. "How do you know about her?" Ironwood asked with a dangerous edge to his voice, "you forget that it was I who purged a virus from the CCTS, I had full access to all files in the system, and again, I ask you destroy it, before I have to." And with that not letting Ironwood answer Corius stomped off away from the arena.

Cinder was pleased, her contact that had made the original virus had managed to make another, subtler, version and she had simply uploaded it to a terminal in vale and the virus spread like wild fire, to prevent any undue removal she had left the upload to the last minute before her plan was put into action, and she watched now as the first step was implemented. She watched as Pyrrah Nikos and Penny Pollendina fought fiercely in the arena, and then it happened just as planned, Pyrrah sent an overwhelming force of magnetism at Penny, and the force caused the strong wires of Penny's weapons to tear the robotic girl into pieces.


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The Entire Arena was silent, the crowed just stared at the remains of what they thought was a student but was now clearly anything but. The screens in the arena went red showing a Queen chess piece, "This is not a tragedy. This was not an accident. This is what happens when you hand over your trust, your safety, your children, to men who claim to be our guardians, but are, in reality, nothing more than men." Cinders voice rings throughout vale and across every broadcast, "Our Academies' Headmasters wield more power than most armies, and one was audacious enough to control both. They cling to this power in the name of peace, and yet, what do we have here? One nation's attempt at a synthetic army, mercilessly torn apart by another's star pupil. What need would Atlas have for a soldier disguised as an innocent little girl? I don't think the Grimm can tell the difference." Ironwood stormed out of the arena to the broadcast booth, Corius sent out orders to the Vale Garrison to begin deploying, preparing for an attack. While he simultaneously pushed his mind into the Colosseums systems. The screens began to flicker as Corius forced more and more of his mental might down upon this new virus, it seemed to learn at every corner but it was no match for his cogitators and he soon had it eliminated, cutting off cinders voice. But the damage was done, the crowd was in an uproar, and then the worst situation was realised "Alert. Incoming Grimm attack. Threat level: 10, Please seek shelter in a calm and orderly manner" the automated voice announced. The Crowd panicked and started to run to the airships.  
In Vale, the large garrison of Skitarii marched forth from the Manufactorum, spreading out through the streets they started to direct civilians into the cordon they were creating. Dunecrawlers stalked forward weapons primed and then the first contact was initiated with the Grimm, the Neutron lasers and eradication beamers firing into the dense hoard. The Grimm slaughtered everyone in sight that was too slow to escape, while the skitarii and now Atlas knights moved forward trying to stem the tide.  
Corius rushed through the crowd, people moving out of his way quickly, he then ran into Alfie and his squad carrying a distraught Lilly and escorting Carmine and Rusty. "to the Olympus now, we need to get them out of here" he ordered the Skitarii, the now large group fled to the dock, arriving they saw bullheads dropping Grimm from the holds. Enraged at the sight of both Grimm and White fang Corius ordered the skitarii into a firing line, they pummelled the Grimm with withering fire, dropping the creatures faster than the White Fang could drop them off, with that threat out of the way the skitarii turned their attention to the White Fang, who with now protection of cover where annihilated. "Alpha-Primus, I entrust my daughters' protection to you now, get these three to safety" Carmine spoke up then, fear evident on her face, "where are you going?" Corius turned his Blue eyes to her and then they switched to a blood red as he activated his combat protocols, "I'm going to defend this city and crush the White Fang" and he was off stomping into the fray as more Grimm appeared. Rick stared in horror at the sight of Vale, he had just arrived back a vale after unloading the villagers at Reliquiae. "get me Corius, I need to know what's going on" he ordered. "it's no use sir, all communications are being jammed." One of the crew responded, "Fine, Gunners, support he Ground units, Magos Charles prepare the Invictus, we march for war." The Mechanicus Airship moved over the city, its underside mounted guns opened fire, cutting into the Grimm, it was then a large blast scored the side of the ship. Down on the street three of the new type of Goliath Grimm where aiming at the Ship. The Armour held as the ship maneuvered out of the line of fire while the Invictus was prepared for battle, while its guns blazed away at the Grimm below supporting the assault of the Skitarii on the ground. Rick was plugged in to the knight, and the ship lowered to just above the buildings as the ramp lowered, Invictus strode forwards and then plunged off the edge of the ramp, crushing one off the Goliaths under foot. Reacting quickly Rick fired a barrage at the nearest Goliath cracking its armour, which he then drove his chainsword through, the third then fired its own blast at him, sending the knight stumbling. Rick recovered and before it could fire again he was upon the Grimm chainsword revving, he swung and the teeth found purchase in its armour allowing him to remove its head, inside the pilot's seat rick was panting already, "well my friend lets go find some more beasties to take down" and the Invictus blew its war horn in response. Corius watched with satisfaction as the Olympus powered off away from Vale, its armaments making short work of any airborne threats. He focused his attention on the fight at hand, he could see in the distance one of Atlas' ships firing on the other, as a third plummeted to the ground smoke and fire billowing from its engines. He was pulled from his observations by the growling of more Grimm, "be gone you foul creatures" he said as his Eradication ray burned through the pack. Corius watched as Ironwood gave some sort of inspiring speech to the young huntsmen and then took off in a bullhead, it was as he watched it pull away that he realised what was happening, one of the Atlas airships had started firing on another. He watched as the attacking airship sent the other to the ground taking a third with it, his own airship turned to engage the new threat and he watched with satisfaction as it moved into knife fighting range to punish the traitorous crew. Corius chased after the students, I seemed that they had similar destinations in mind, so it was to their shock that Corius bordered the same bullhead as them. "Mister Gage, what are you doing here?" Questioned Ruby, "my forces are fighting in Vale, I intend to teach those responsible for this a lesson" the ramp closed and the bullhead took off heading for the city. As the bullhead soared over the city Corius opened the ramp and surveyed the battlefield below, it was chaos, Grimm swamped the city chasing civilians through the streets while others fought his skitarii and the Atlesian knights, in the distance he could see the Invictus carving a swath through the hoard as the skitarii moved around it.  
The bullhead landed briefly allowing Corius to exit and then it was off again taking the students to beacon. As he moved through the city he linked up with several squads of Skitarii and Dunecrawlers, as they moved they cleared out any Grimm they could find and managed to rescue a few groups of civilians who were now protected by the force of cyborg soldiers. The force moved further into the city to regroup with the main garrison so Corius could start to organise the defence more effectively. They had just entered an open square when the Atlas knights turned on them, a few skitarii falling to their fire before they were eliminated by the remaining force, "Atlas has betrayed us, terminate them all" Corius ordered as more knights entered the square.  
What was a running gun battle turned into a last defence, with the Skitarii and Dunecrawlers encircling the civilians and holding back the combined might of the Atlas robots and the Grimm. "Invictus Strider this is Corius Gage, requesting reinforcements to my position" Corius transmitted over the Noosphere, even as more skitarii fell. Corius spied a bullhead with White fang markings, he marked it and the lone Icarus array equipped dunecrawler fired its devastating weapons at the craft, tearing it in two pieces, before it refocused its attention to the nevermores' in the sky. The force was starting to be overwhelmed when one of the buildings collapsed as the Invictus forced its way through, followed by fresh skitarii forces. "you are a welcome sight to my optics Rick" Corius said as the Knight laid waste to the Grimm surrounding the square. "You're welcome Corius, we have an Evac zone established behind the lines, we'll take the people there and then we can finish this fight" Rick said out the Vox caster, the skitarii then started leading the civilians through the rubble of the buildings to the safe zone. The two Airships continued to brawl in the skies above Vale, however the Mechanicus ship was coming of better in the engagement, thanks in part to its improved armour and the instillation of broad sides. The ship, christened The Lilly, swung its port side around the rear of the Atlas ship and sent a full salvo into its engines, destroying enough to leave it dead in the 'water', now The Lilly moved alongside the ship to begin boarding actions. The Skitarii Marines rushed onto the Atlas ship and to their surprise they found no resistance, no crew fighting them or even a marine contingent. As the squads moved further into the ship they found the crew, all of them slaughtered, some still in their beds. The Princeps in charge of the boarding force entered the Bridge and immediately came under fire from a group of White Fang. The princeps retreated out the door before ordering "krak grenades, centre room" in response three Skitarii moved forward, two pulled out grenades while the third readied his arc rifle, the princeps started a noosphere countdown and when it hit zero the first skitarii laid down fire while the other two threw two krak grenades into the room. After two distinct booms, the squad rushed into the room and found it newly decorated with the blood of the Faunus. "Lilly, the is Princeps SM-01, we have control of the ship".  
Corius Dodged a golden stinger as he parried the claws of an Ursa while another Mechadendrite stabbed through a creep that tried to sneak up on him. A hundred metres away rumbled the foot falls of the Invictus Strider as Rick fought off yet more of the mutant Goliaths with the large corpses of several others around him. Intermixed with them were the Skitarii and even a few of the Huntsmen that had come for the festival, though it was clear that the inexhaustible might of the Mechanicus was faring better than the singular effort of the huntsmen. Corius was pressed hard, the Grimm while weaker than some foes he had faced in his many years, while they were numerous what made it difficult was the lack of corpses to build into any sort of makeshift wall, the smaller Grimm just disappeared, leaving the Skitarii and Huntsmen exposed, which limited how far they could expand the front line into vale proper. "Lilly this is Corius, ordering bombardment in Grid 4324 3821, sustained fire 5 minutes," a few seconds after that order the Lilly moved into position over Corius and unleashed its powerful underside mounted weapons into the hoard, and it forced the Grimm back. "we cannot keep fighting like this" came Ricks voice over the Vox net, "I Know, Vale is lost we must evacuate and we will return later to reclaim it." Corius answered. "I shall, give the order" Corius linked himself to Vales city wide speakers, "This is Corius Gage of the Mechanicus, I am effectively immediately ordering the Full evacuation of Vale, the City is lost, any Civilians remaining head to the Skitarii Front lines if you can and you will be evacuated to Reliquiae for safety." Despite the Urgency required the civilian population of vale slowly trickled in, escorted by squads of Skitarii sent out to find survivors and bring them back for evacuation. The Lilly and the captured atlas airship had moved overhead to begin taking on evacuees while Corius and Rick maintained the Ground forces defence. It was as one of the last squads returned with survivors that Rick took a hit from a bio weapon, Corius focused in on where the shot came from and what he saw shocked him, it was huge, the size of a Knight and it even looked like one, with two arm like appendages, one holding a bone like cannon and the other a bone sword. Studying the creature Corius realised what it was, it was the Grimm's attempt at making a Knight. Rick recovered from the shot quickly, and he almost froze when he saw his opponent, it was Knight like Grimm, "how have they got something like that?" he asked himself, and he felt the familiar warmth of the battle cannon firing. The Shots hit the creature dead centre, and to Ricks horror it even had a fake Ion shield. Rick charged the beast, war horn blaring as he ran, the beast roared in return, meeting him in a charge of its own. Their Blades clashed and the superior reaper chainsword won as it dug into the bone sword of the Grimm, it retaliated with a few shots from its cannon, forcing rick to back pedal with the impacts. "Corius, what is this Thing" he asked frantically over the Vox, "I am unsure, it seems to be a poor attempt at copying the Omnissiah blessed Knight, I recommend immediate termination" Rick laughed at that "well I wasn't going to just let it escape" Rick answered moving back into the fight, chainsword revving. The Next shot from the Grimm overloaded the Ion shield and tore away some of the Invictus' armour, "I will not let this end here" Rick growled out through the sensory pain, his body glowed white with his aura, before it extended out into the Knight.  
Corius watched as the Grimm-Knight shot tore into the Invictus and overloaded the Ion shields and removed several plates of armour. It was a shock when the cockpit glowed silver for a moment before the entire Knight was enveloped in a Silver coat of armour. Rick panted hard inside the knight, he could feel his aura and his semblance all over his knight, it even started to repair the armour. He looked to the Grimm-knight and smirked when he saw it hesitate, and he charged, the Chainsword being coated in his semblance he thrust it forward into the Grimm, piercing it through the head. The Grimm collapsed and faded away as Ricks semblance faded, leaving the Knight behind to continue the fight. The Two Airships rose into the sky after loading up both the rescued civilians and the remains of the Skitarii forces, along with the Knight. As they flew over the city they continued to fire down upon any pockets of Grimm they could see. Corius watched from the Bridge of the Lilly as Vale burned, the world had just received a wakeup call, either stand together of Fall one by one as Corius had no doubt the negative emotions caused by this event will spread to every kingdom. "Make for Reliquiae, we have much to do" Corius ordered and both Airships fired up their engines and made for the Dragon continent, both holding the last remnants of Vale in their holds.  
The Atmosphere in the Airships was tense, the civilian's morning all the lost friends and family, Hunters grieving for fallen comrades. Rick watched as all these emotions moved through the large crowd, "we will recover from this" came Corius voice beside him, "I don't know Corius, losing a village is one thing but a Kingdom, that hasn't happened in a long, long time" Rick said watching as a child was embraced by his parents. "Humanity always survives, no matter the odds, and that is what makes us the superior being." Corius said as he pumped his voice into the Vox casters. "Citizens of Vale" the crowds in both ships stilled, "the world has suffered a tragic loss this day, and although we grieve now I can assure you that Mechanicus will retake Vale within year" the crowd roared in approval, "and I will personally lead the Hunt for the ones responsible for this travesty and they will face punishment the Mechanicus way." Corius left the Hold to the sound of roaring approval.  
The rescued Civilians and weary hunters stepped out of the Airships and into the seemingly under populated city. "For all peoples arriving from Vale, accommodation will be provided to all, sizing will vary on size of familial group", boomed a voice over the parade ground. Slowly but surely the people received their shelter and were given rations to start their new lives for the time being, it was just as some of the more inquisitive souls had started to explore when an announcement was broadcast over the budding city, "Incoming Grimm Hoard, all civilians return to your homes, deploying Void shields, activating Gun servitors" the message repeated as the cities wall mounted gun servitors came to life, the void shield fading into existence over the city. The few brave souls who watched from their windows all saw the magnificent light show of impacts against the shield, and 30 minutes later the same mechanical voice announced "Grimm threat eliminated, civilians may go about normal business." By the end of the day many vale citizens had decided to make Reliquiae their new home.

A/N : i dont own 40k or RWBY. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, in regards to the slowed down updates, i recently restarted work after having two months off so i have a lot less time to work on this story, but for now i will continue to work on it when i can. 


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**A/N: I am sorry for the long wait, writers block coupled with work lead to the massive delay in the release of this chapter, however i don't know when the next one will be completed or released, this story is not dead yet. In any case read and enjoy. (i Own neither 40k or RWBY)**

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Corius watched as more people boarded bullheads destined to the other three remaining Kingdoms, most of whom were visiting Vale for the festival and were now returning home. Those that were not, either Vale residents or those too injured to travel, remained within the walls of the kingdom. Corius watched as a Schnee Bullhead left the airfield, its occupants one Jacques Schnee and Weiss Schnee, another left shortly after taking an injured Yang and Unconscious Ruby back home to the island of Patch with their Father and Qrow.

Corius stared intently at the shifting and changing screen before him, the screen showed the entire map of Remnant and it showed the last six months of Grimm activity. He had been like this for well over an hour, just staring as the data tick by on the screen, and slowly he saw the pattern reveal itself to him, the Grimm surrounding Vale had slowly but surely amassed to one side of the Kingdom. Even those on the opposite side of the Kingdom gave the city a wide berth before re-joining its brethren, and then he watched the day of the Invasion, and the activity spiked, what was once a slow and steady migration turned into a full-on charge. This is what concerned Corius so, the idea that the Grimm could plan and strategize suggested a high intelligence than they had displayed even in the oldest of known Grimm. Which while the existence of the Queen ensured that they had some sort of leader, the ability to coordinate such an attack would send fear into Corius if he could still feel such a thing.

The Grimm were only one issue that Corius busied himself with, the other was Rick's performance with _Invictus Strider_ and the stunning ability to push his aura and semblance into the Knight. When he had first arrived Corius had researched aura and beyond learning the true existence of the soul he had been unable to determine much else. The fact that Rick had used his semblance in conjunction with the knight proved one of two things, either Aura was more versatile than Remnant realised or Rick's individual semblance was incredibly powerful, either situation Corius could exploit.

A portion of his attention was also focused on Lilly, he had kept a close eye on her since the loss of Vale, while she had been evacuated early on and had not seen the fall of the city he feared any relapse of memory's she had of when he had first met her. He noticed that she was in fact making her way to him and he turned to greet her when she entered, "Daddy?" Lilly called out, her voice coming out slurred slightly due to tiredness. "Yes Honey, what is it?" Corius asked as he scoped her up in his many arms, "I'm tired and you promised to tell me a new story" Lilly answered curling into his body as he increased his internal temperature to a more comfortable level for her. "that I did" Corius answered as he walked in the direction of Lilly's room.

By the time Corius had made his way to Lilly's room the young girl was fast asleep. He moved quietly and gently over to her bed and placed her under the covers'. He watched silently as she shifted slightly from the sudden loss of warmth. He stood there watching his daughter and for the first time in a long time wondered when he had stopped seeing her as a curiosity to seeing her as his proper daughter. And it was then that he realised that it no longer mattered to him, all that did was her safety on the surface of this death world until such a time as he could return with her to the Imperium. He felt a tinge of humour swell within him as he realised the ridicule that most of his order would give him for feeling emotion towards something as 'trivial' as a small human girl.

The following week saw the continued production of Skitarii forces, with the addition of Katapron breachers and destroyers armed with torsion cannons and grav guns respectively. Whilst this was occurring several more raids had been conducted on white fang bases of operation. The White fang had in response began propaganda to incite the Faunus population into terrorist attacks while also launching more attacks of their own within the borders of the other three kingdoms.

Several weeks later Jacques Schnee had decided to host a fund-raising event to fund the restoration of Vale and the support of the displaced civilians. Inviting the elite of the world eventually and invitation was extended to Corius and Rick as well as their families. The event was to be held at the Schnee Manor, located on the outskirts Atlas in the only wilderness area of atlas to be free of Grimm, even then regular patrols were performed to ensure that none moved into the area.

Corius and Rick accompanied by Lilly, Carmine and Rusty, arrived via Thunderhawk. The Craft swooped low over the city, its engines roaring spectacularly. The Thunderhawk touched down on an empty landing pad, and as the ramp opened a squad of Skitarii marched out and formed an honour guard as Corius stepped out with Lilly and was followed by Rick and his family. The group was met by a well-dressed man in a white suit who had short Bright Blue swept back hair and a sharp clean-shaven face, "Hello and welcome to the Schnee Manor, I am Alex, unfortunately due to security concerns your" here Alex paused and looked of Corius' shoulder "men' will have to remain outside."

Corius glowered at the man, seemingly deciding whether to heed the man's request, after a short but pregnant pause Corius nodded, Alex sagged with relief as he had been warned about the Archmagos and his rather bizarre personality. "However, one shall accompany my daughter" at those words the Skitarii known as 'Alfie' stepped forward and fell behind the young girl.

Not deeming to wait for any consent Corius brushed past the slim man and pressed on into the Manor. Stepping into the main hall Corius was welcomed to the sound of a string quartet playing an unknown composition, next to him Lilly shifted uncomfortably, "Daddy, why do we need to be here, I don't know anyone."

Looking down Corius regarded his daughter, "as the newest rulers to appear in the world it was beneficial to show our support for the lost Kingdom of Vale, however if you wish take Rusty and Alfie with you and enjoy yourselves." Hearing that Lilly cheered up a bit and with a quick thank you thrown over her shoulder Lilly grabbed Rusty and dashed off to the buffet table.

"They really like each other don't they" Rick remarked as he watched his son get dragged away. Corius said nothing in return simply nodding his head slightly, Rick knew by now that the nod was the most he would get out of the Tech-priest at that moment.

Corius left the Silver's as he wondered the large room, by Remnant standards, and he even tried to appreciate the art that the Schnee's had commissioned to sell. It was as he was doing this that he came across Weiss Schnee and unsurprisingly Lilly, she had developed some form of Hero worship for the heiress, "Miss Schnee, this is quite the" Corius looked around trying to find the right word to use "gathering you father has put together."

Weiss adopted a thin smile, "thank you Sir, but I'm afraid that most of the people here don't understand what it's for." Before Corius could respond a young man in a black vest and red undershirt interrupted the conversation either not seeing Corius and Alfie who was standing nearby or he did and just ignored them to speak with the now visibly annoyed Heiress.

After trying and failing to flirt with Weiss he turned his attention to the painting they were standing in front of. "yeah it kind of Pricey for a painting" at this comment Weiss' expression changed to downright furious. "it's to raise money" giving a confused look the boy asked "really? For what"

Weiss turned fully and levelled a glare at the boy, "I'll admit I only come to these things for the food and the company", Wiess stepped forward and in a low voice growled out "Get. Out." Confused the boy asked dumbly "What?"

Weiss stopped trying to hide her distain "Get out, or ill have you thrown out" at this Corius had Alfie step closer in a threatening manner hands flexed and poised to seize the teen. "but I haven't done any-" at the last sentence Weiss yelled "Leave", the teen snorted and left, not noticing the pair or glowing blue eyes focused on him.

Weiss turned back to the painting, depicting Beacon at its height, "I'm sorry sir, you shouldn't have seen that" Weiss said turning to Corius apologetically. "Don't be, I don't want to be here just like you, but alas it is expected, and as much as I hate it I must do it, Although, where I'm from he would have been stripped down and thrown out naked for less than that."

Weiss laughed and smiled slightly at that before her mood soured again as she overheard a nearby conversation, "If they're so arrogant to think they can get by without proper kingdom defence, then I say good riddance"

"SHUT UP!", a voice screamed out, and all eyes in the room turned to its source, one Weiss Schnee, although she paid them no heed. "Weiss?" Jacques asked from nearby.

"you don't have a clue, none of you do" she continued ignoring her father., the Target of her ire a blonde woman in a purple dress asked, "Excuse me?"

Weiss continued, now addressing the rest of the hall, "You're all just standing around talking about nothing! Worrying about your hair, your money, your stupid problems that don't mean anything!"

Jacques quickly came over to Weiss and seized his daughter by her arm, "Weiss that's enough."

Weiss resisted however and in the process of freeing herself tripped and fell, and much to everyone's shock activated a glyph that started to form into a boarbatusk, it was however thankfully crushed under the combined weight of Corius and Alfie before it could full form.

"Miss Schnee while I share your distaste for these people, I would advise you don't summon a Grimm so close to Lilly" Corius chastised as he returned to a resting position. Lilly however had decided to defend her friend from an attack and started beating on Jacques' leg.

Looking down at the girl, he kicked slightly, sending Lilly down to the ground, and sneered at her "children should be seen not heard. Tears started to well up in her eyes, but before they could fall, a red blur pinned Jacques to the ground. Standing above him was Alfie, both Arc Pistols drawn and charged pointed right at the Schnee Patriarchs face.

The Crowd went silent, everyone went silent awaiting fore whatever or whomever would break the silence. That man would be Jacques "what is the meaning of this, what do you think you're doing? Guards arrest this man" he ordered, two Atlas soldiers stepped forward, Alfie simply pointed a pistol in their direction.

"they will do no such thing" Corius' voice cut across the room. "you harmed my daughter, he is simply acting as ordered, to either apprehend or kill any threat to her safety." Corius loomed over the Schnee, glaring with baleful glowing eyes, "Be thank full I was able to stop him before he carried out his orders." General Ironwood decided at that point to interrupt.

"Corius, stop this at once, you are scaring the people, your scaring Lilly" at the last word Corius looked over at Lilly and let out a very human sounding sigh, not saying a word he turned and approached Lilly, who was still on the floor, "I am sorry for scaring you Lilly, are you hurt?" he asked as he picked her up. Lilly shook her head to the negative, "I'm okay" she added.

"I will be departing, I advise no one try and stop me" Corius said as he walked past Ironwood and Alfie released Jacques as he stood to follow.

The Schnee Patriarch was Irate, "James! Are you just going to let him leave? he attacked me!" Ironwood turned to the now red-faced man, "and you attacked his daughter and 11-year-old girl, you lucky he didn't kill you" at that James turned to leave. Corius, still holding Lilly and being followed by Alfie had only just made it half way to the exit when a bright flash of light followed by loud explosion and one wall of the hall being blown inward.

Corius, his reactions greater than any normal humans, tuned his back to the blast almost as it it occurred with Alfie moving to stand between him and the explosion as well. Through the brand-new hole in the wall streamed members of the White Fang, "Everybody get down on the ground and no-one gets hurt", a masked Fang member yelled firing a rifle into the air.

The Elite of Remnant screamed at the sound and ducked down as more shots were fired, "I won't ask again, everyone down on the ground", this time the people did as he asked and got down onto the ground. The only ones not to comply where Corius, Alfie Ironwood and Rick, with Jacques slowly making his way to his feet.

"Who do you think you are?" raged a now even angrier Jacques, stepping forward to the White Fang, whose members where now spreading out around the room. "We are the White Fang and for Once we are not here for you 'Schnee'" the fang member said with a sneer. He then gestured to Corius. "we're here him" Corius had just turned around, having given a now terrified Lilly to Alfie, who had stepped behind the Arch-Magos.

Corius regarded the Men and women before him silently for a moment as some trained weapons on him while others pointed them at the guests. Finally speaking his voice was even and monotone, "and what would you want with me?"

The Supposed leader of the White Fang group faltered slightly in the face of Corius' calm demeanour, "we are here to demand your immediate surrender of Reliquiae to the White Fang" the Dog-eared Faunus shouted out. Corius stilled, almost all whirring and clicking that was normally associated with him dying for an instant, before they returned in full force, "NO" was Corius' response.

The dog Faunus blinked in surprise and then growled, "if you don't we'll kill everyone here including that Bitch you call a daughter", Corius froze, Rage flooded his systems, the Faunus had insulted Lilly, he was threatening Lilly, Corius mind was made then and there, the White Fang was going to be Exterminated, He called for the Skitarii squad to rush to the Hall, and simultaneously ordered Alfie to take Lilly to the Thunderhawk. "you will regret saying that"

Before any of the fang could move Corius had drawn his weapons, the Eradication ray fired, atomising two unlucky Faunus leaving behind only their shoes. The next to dire was a deer Faunus that stood to close and was with reach of Corius power Axe. Corius was half way to the leader when the Skitarii squad entered the Hall, at the same time the other Faunus had recovered and opened fire on the Archmagos, bullets caused his shield to flare but none got through the powerful field of energy.

The Skitarii moved with ruthless efficiency as targets where marked and eliminated in short order, the only casualty being a ranger that was hit with a large calibre rifle and had its head destroyed, showering the area in metal and oil, along with the remnants of its brain. The Skitarii singled out the sniper and a dozen shots entered her body in the span of a few seconds.

The remaining Faunus where quickly and efficiently eliminated as Corius now approached the leader, kept alive at Corius' mental command. With his comrades in arms defeated and broken, the Leader of the raid reached into a pocket and pulled out a detonator, but with a quick burst of static Corius neutralised the signal. The Dog Faunus stared dumbly at the button and then with dawning terror on his face he looked up into the intense unblinking gaze of the Archmagos.

Corius reached out a clawed limb, seizing the man by his crude body armour, hauled him up to his eye level leaving the man dangling a half metre off the ground. "you made a Mistake in coming here, I was content just to leave your operation alone and simply harass and hinder your group" Corius brought the man's face closer, "but now, now I'm going to annihilate your organisation from top to bottom." Before the man could form a retort Corius drove a hand through his armour and into his chest, wrapping metal digits around his heart and crushing it in his fist, the man spasmed once and then stilled.

The Hall was silent, no one dared to make a sound, having just witnessed a most brutal murder and the anger of the Tech-priest. The Silence was broken as Corius turned to address the nearest guest, "you" a young woman squeaked in fear as he pointed at her, "I require your Scroll." Fearfully she held out the device, and breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't take her hand with it.

Corius passed the Scroll to a skitarii who then held it out facing Corius, "Attention Remnant, As many of you may know, my Name is Corius Gage, tonight I bring you news and a promise, first the news" here Corius paused and looked around briefly, "as of five minutes ago, a White fang group attacked the Schnee manor, during a function held to raise funds for those affected by the fall of Vale, as you can see" the Skitarii panned the scroll top show the bodies of the dead Faunus. "It was repelled with extreme prejudice, as for the Promise, as of this moment, if the White Fang do not cease all terrorism activities and surrender to the nearest authority I will personally hunt down each and every cell and see that you are eliminated, those that surrender will be treated fairly and respectfully, those that do not will cease to exist in this world." The guest around the room gasped and started murmuring amongst themselves before Corius continued. "this is not a threat, or even a warning, it is a promise, stop now or face elimination." The Feed was cut and the Skitarii tossed the scroll back to the woman.

James Ironwood chased after Corius as he and his skitarii made to leave, "Corius, you cant mean to go to war with the Fang, we just lost one of the Kingdoms, the people are scared enough as it is"

Corius tuned fully to Ironwood, "you misunderstand General, I'm not going to war with the Fang" James sighed, thankful that the Archmagos had been bluffing, "I Am conducting Pest control" Corius finished as he turned and left the Manor. At that moment, General James Ironwood found himself pitying the White Fang, something he didn't think he'd ever do.


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The New city of reliquiae found itself a hive of activity following the attack at the Schnee manor a month past. The Arch-Magos had ordered the complete mobilisation of his current forces, the orders flowing freely through the noosphere to the alpha primes of each cohort and then further down so each Skitarii knew the role they were about to play in the planets history.

Four Airships, properly painted in true Mechanicus colours and sanctified by Corius himself, awaited the order to lift off and procced to their given targets, each had a full cohort of Skitarii, dunecrawlers and infiltrators. With Corius' personal cohort reinforced with ruststalkers and battle servitors.

Rick stood with Corius, both watching over the final preparations for the transport of the Invictus. "Are we really wiping out the Faunas?" Rick asked as the last locking clamp snapped into place with a resounding clang. "Faunus no, the White Fang yes" was Corius curt reply. "I've studied the history of your world, the Fang used to be a civil rights group" at this Corius let out a mechanical scoff, which sounded more like a burst of static to Rick, "and then they turned into terrorist." Rick grimaced, he remembered the White fang of old, and he truly believed they could have succeeded, "with how the Grimm react to emotions, its unusual that they were not targeted for removal as soon as they changed." Corius turned to rick.

Rick was silent for a moment, "I think I know what you're thinking Corius, but this isn't the Imperium, we have struggled for all of our known history against the Grimm, the white fang just never had priority over the Grimm." Rick took a deep breath, "I used to think the Equality they wanted was a good thing, but now it seems that they have shown their true colours, that of supremacy, and I can not let that occur." Corius nodded, he stepped forward and Rick followed.

"You will need that conviction in the battles to come, should you waver, you will perish." Rick grimaced but did not back down. The Invictus was finally loaded and ready, Corius strode up to the embarkation ramp and found Lilly waiting for him. "come back soon pleas daddy." Her eyes shining with unshed tears, with gentle grace Corius rubbed the single tear that fell from her cheek, "I Will my dear, I promise" and with that Lilly gave Corius a hug and then let him board the Airship. Rick spent a little longer saying his farewells, but after a few moments the two leaders of Reliquiae had boarded, and the ramp closed.

The Four Airships lifted into the air amidst the sound of fanfare blasted throughout the city and the heavy clouds of burning incense. The ships rose high into the air, and as one powered away from the city and then as they neared the coast of the dragon continent, they separated each one heading in a different direction, three heading to Atlas, Vacuo and Mistral, while the forth, with Corius and Rick headed for Menagerie.

As the ships journeyed to their destinations they invariably ran into the aerial Grimm who upon seeing the craft, threw themselves at the craft. These endeavours proved fruitless as the newly added point defence turrets opened fire and absolutely shredded all threats that came upon them.

As Atlas was the nearest Kingdom the newly christened Ark Mechanicus Vale arrived over the city and found a hoard of Grimm attacking the city walls. The _Vale_ lowered itself and swung around to hover over the walls. The Atlas soldiers and Huntsmen looked up at the ship in awe and some small hope. Some directly beneath the ship panicked as the cannons started to rotate and a low hum sounded out from the cannons. The panic subsided as the cannons unleased their payload into the hoard, the resounding explosion being heard on the other side of the city.

The _Vale_ then moved so it was hovering just outside the city and lowered down to rest just above the ground, the sides of the ship opened and as the ramps touched the ground the cohort of Skitarii marched forth, followed by the dunecrawlers and the infiltrators. The Mechanicus forces formed a solid battle line between the embattled city walls and the now wary Grimm.

A Silent order passed through the ranks and with mechanical grace weapons where raised as one, targets given, prioritised and updated near constantly over the noosphere. In the eyes of the Alpha-Primus a countdown started, as it ticked down to zero, targets were updated still as the Grimm shifted in their unease.

The chronometer reached zero and Remnant once again witnessed the might of the Mechanicus. Galvanic rifles and Radium carbines unleased their deadly payloads, Dunecrawlers spat forth the eldritch energies of the Mechanicus, vaporising the biggest threats with neutron lasers and eradication beamers. The Infiltrators stalked forwards under the cover of their skitarii brethren, none suffering shots from behind as they moved, the neurostatic emitters blaring their disruptive sound, the Grimm roaring in pain as eardrums burst and eyes popped from the onslaught.

The _Vale_ continued to add its own considerable firepower to the bombardment. Broadside cannons roared their fury as they unloaded shells into the depths of the hoard, point defences tearing into the nevermore in the skies and small secondary weapons spitting fire at the thickest parts of the front.

The Grimm roared in pain and anger, the hoard thinning by the second. The Grimm quietened as one as loud thumps echoed from the rear, and a large shape materialised. The Grimm had brought another of the fake bio-knights to tear down the walls. The Skitarii as one fell back towards the ship, the dune crawlers moving forward to take their place.

The Alpha-Primus, AP-003, looked through multiple views of the creature, and he found it wanting. He could see the 'knight' in several spectrums, revealing its lack of heavy armour or even any form of ion shield. Directing the aim of the Dunecrawlers, all targeting different weak points, AP-003 gave the order to fire. Beams of blue energy shot forth, some missing as the creature tried to dodge but its size betrayed it in that moment as shots slammed into its carapace and burned gaping holes in its body, one even pierced right through and carried on into the sky.

With a final roar of defiance, the beast stepped forward looking as though it was going to keep advancing when the combined firepower of The _Vale_ thundered into the beast. When the smoke cleared the beast was gone, all traces of its existence wiped from the face of Remnant. And for the first time in recorded history the people of Atlas witnessed a miracle the Grimm, creatures of darkness bent on destroying everything, Ran, the beasts turned and fled away from the Mechanicus.

The Defenders of Atlas cheered as the gates to the city opened to admit their saviours, who marched into the city in ordered files. Squads of rangers flocked to the wall, bolstering the defenders, while Dunecrawlers parked near the entrance as their crews performed post battle rites and sanctification. As the _Vale_ moved to hover over the city once more, its guns trained outside its walls, General James Ironwood approached the cohort of Skitarii. Grimacing he asked "Is Corius here?", he received a single shake of a head as a messaged was passed silently up the Noosphere. A moment later AP-003 stepped out from the crowed of Skitarii, he silently held out a data-pad to the General. Ironwood raised one eye brow before he took it and began to read, once finished his grimace turned into a full-on frown. Looking up he stared directly into Ap-003's eyes, "this changes thing's, while I'm grateful for you help with the Grimm, I can't help but feel this is some elaborate plane to take over my city." AP-003 was silent for a second, then "General, if the Arch-Magos want Atlas, we would not be speaking right now."

 _The Lilly_

Corius was still, nigh statuesque in his appearance, as he sifted through the inload from AP-003 and the skirmish against the Grimm hoard. While not unexpected, it was still surprising to find Atlas under attack and on the verge of invasion when the _Vale_ arrived. Corius moved the report to a subroutine as Rick joined him once again on the bridge. "never thought I'd every visit Menagerie in my life" Rick said coming to stand next to Corius, his grey eyes scanning the crew as they worked.

"You may yet, unfortunately, the White Fang while it may have originated in Menagerie it no longer maintains its headquarters there, as I learned from our captives, it is located further east. Remaining hidden from potential assault from human forces." Rick turned to face Corius, "I take it we have a way of finding it then?".

Corius merely made a gesture and a screen lowered down and a map of the continent appeared. "while they made a good effort to conceal it from visual observation from high flying aircraft, they never had to consider a satellite with heat mapping capabilities." As Corius spoke the map changed to show various colours ranging from deep purple to a few locations showing a bright yellow orange. The map zoomed in to one of the smaller yellow patches, "this is the location of the headquarters, several scans have shown a very developed compound hidden within the base of the mountain." The map switched back to an optical view. Now that Rick knew where to look he could just make out the signs of the perimeter to the base.

"how do you plan on taking it?" Rick cut right to the chase, Corius gave a few mental commands and symbols and arrows appeared on the map. "at night fall Infiltrators will move into the compound, taking out leaders and high value targets near the perimeter, leaving the central base untouched, then at first light you will lead the bulk of the forces with me to the main gate, with the _Invictus Strider_ and the Skitarii the base should fall in a mater of minutes." The map changed as each detail was brought up, until all the target indicators disappeared to be replaced with the cog skull of the Mechanicus. Rick was surprised to find himself eager for the battle, normally he felt that sense of anticipation was always tinged with fear, now he found it was with annoyance at the fact he had to wait another day before he could ride the _Invictus_ into battle.

 _Time Skip- following day, Dawn_

Rick laughed as he strode into the oncoming fire from the White Fang, the primitive dumb fire rockets and small calibre weapons fire doing nothing to dent his Ion shield. His battle cannon roared as he unloaded rounds into the main defensive walls, his carapace mounted Ironspear missiles launched into the rear of the compound as he annihilated watch towers, marked by the following Skitarii as targets for fire support.

Corius watched on with pride as he strode at the forefront of his cohort, seeing Rick fully take to his knightly duty. The Magos snapped a shot from his pistol whenever a Faunus worked up the courage to raise its head, he made it impossible for them to make the mistake a second time. He linked him self to Ricks Vox as the knight swept its chainsword across the ramparts of the section of wall it stood before, "House Silver, if you would provide an opening for us" Corius followed the statement by marking a target on a section of wall. Ricks voice boomed over the Vox, "it would be my pleasure Arch-Magos."

Rick commanded his stead into position and with a swing brought his reaper chainsword down onto the wall, raising it high and repeating the swing before with drawing a step and with a mighty swing, crashed a foot through the wall, bringing the surrounding wall down with a titanic boom. With an entrance created the bulk of the infantry flooded into the base, coordinated fire bring down Faunus as they appeared.

Minutes later they had complete control of the base, and to both Corius and Rick's ire it appeared as though the White Fang had left a token force to act as a distraction while the main bulk of the organisation fled to a new base. Currently Corius and Rick were interrogating one of the few Faunus to surrender.

"listen kid, just tell us where they went, and I promise we won't hurt you anymore than we have, and you'll even get to see your parents again." Rick said with a tired sigh as the young fox Faunus continued to glare silently. The Teen had several gashes along his arms and a large cut above his eyes that continued to bleed profusely down his face. "If you maintain this foolish stubbornness I will have to resort to more drastic measures to extract the information, but that would take time and it will rob you of your higher functions" Corius stated leaning down to come 'face' to face with the young man, "and while I have no qualms about do so, it will take time and require us to travel back to reliquiae, and we do not have that time, Now I ask again and for the last time. Where did they go?" to his credit the teen lasted ten seconds staring into Corius' eyes before he deflated and started to quietly sob.

"Mistral" was all the boy managed to get out in-between sobs. Corius nodded and stood to his full Hight. "We shall depart at once. Rick return with the _Invictus_ to the ship and get it prepped for transport." Rick gave a curt nod and left the small room, giving one last look to the young man tied to a chair before he turned and strode off to mount his knight. Corius waited for Ricks steps to fade before looking to the boy and raising his Serpentina, the teens eyes widening in fear as he looked down the barrel of the antique looking gun. "wait, what are you doing, you said you would let me go if I told you" he pleaded as Corius pressed the gun to the boy's head, "Clearly you have never been lied to." The teen blinked and then all he knew was burning pain and then nothing as his brain melted from the heat released by the Ancient weapon.

Corius returned to the ship to find everything loaded and ready, the ship merely waiting for his presence to lift off. Not even turning to look a command over the Noosphere set off explosive charges left in the base, and with an eerie calmness about the whole ordeal Corius boarded the ship which then lifted into the sky turning to head in the direction of Mistral. Across the continent in the city of Menagerie the citizens there swore on that day they heard a distant rumble, with no clouds insight, it was passed off as a particularly violent storm off the coast.

 _Mistral- Current time_

Oscar and Qrow watched as the large Red Painted Atlas airship entered the airspace over Mistral City. "it seems Corius has decided to make good on his promise." Qrow commented as Oscar hummed in agreement. The Huntsman, and the young boy with a mans soul made their way to the air field, where the ship was setting itself down.

As the odd pair approached the ship the Golden letters on the side came into view, they read _Vindicta_. Oscar's eyes glowed briefly, "he never was a subtle man." Qrow scoffed as they both stepped forward to greet the Mechanical man the believed to have arrived. When they reached the ship, and found a squad of Mistral guards attempting to speak with a Skitarii, the two huntsmen stepped in.

"Guys, its ok we know than man who owns this ship, if you let us speak with him we can sort out this mess without resorting to violence." Qrow said stepping between the skitarii and the guards. The lead guard gave one withering glare to Qrow before scoffing, "fine, but any trouble they cause is on your head." Qrow nodded once as the guards relaxed slightly and backed off.

Turning to the Skitarii Qrow found himself face to face with it, "so I guess Corius is not here then?" the Alpha shook his head no, "he has other matters to attend at this moment, I am here to provide security to this city in the wake of the events of the past months." Oscar/Ozpin took this opportunity to intervene, "And what Matter would he be perusing?" the Alpha turned to Oscar looked him up and down before turning to Qrow, "We were not aware of child soldiers in your ranks" Qrow blinked once, before laughing out loud, "No, we don't use children, this is Ozpin" Qrow gestured to the young boy. "he does not fit the visuals provided of him." Oscar/Ozpin sighed, "we have much to discuss, I assume you can contact Corius?" the Alpha Nodded. "then come with me, Corius will wish to know of the latest developments." The trio walked off as the Alpha started issuing orders to his cohort and contacting Corius.

 _Several Hours later_

Ozpin had just finished retelling his story to the Skitarii Alpha, awaiting a response from the cyborg. The Alpha's eyes dimmed briefly before returning to full brightness. "Professor, it is good to see you Alive and well, despite your current circumstances." Ozpin and Qrow looked to each other confused, "Corius?" Ozpin asked. "Correct, I have temporarily taken over Alpha-Primus-002 in order to have a direct conversation."

"yes, well now that you know our current situation, I need to ask, what is your army doing here?" Ozpin asked leaning forward in his chair. "First, this is not my full army just a single Cohort, I have sent one to each of the remaining Kingdoms, while Rick and myself have moved to pursue our attack on the White Fang, the cohort with you has been given orders to protect the kingdom from both Grimm and the White Fang, while the cohort sent to Atlas has already turned away one Grimm hoard." Corius Strode around the room he studied the layout and even took in the view from the window showing the city.

"today we found the headquarters of the White Fang." Corius paused staring out the window. "And what did you do?" Asked Qrow, dreading the answer. "we razed it to the ground, it seems the bulk of the organisation fled before we arrived and left a small token force to occupy us." Corius turned to see both Ozpin and Qrow staring openly at him. "you managed to find their base?" Qrow asked incredulously. "you forget, I have satellites in orbit." Was all Corius answered with.

Ozpin frowned in thought, trying to figure out what the Fangs next move would be. He seemingly gave up and asked, "Did you learn what they were planning to do?" Corius nodded, "we learnt that they are headed here, which is why I am currently en-route to this kingdom, with the combined forces of my two cohorts and any Huntsmen located here any attempt at taking this city are doomed to fail."

Qrow grimaced, letting out a grunt, "if buy Huntsmen, you mean me, Oz and three teenagers then were set." Corius whirled around, "do you mean to tell me that this kingdoms huntsmen have all left this city to its fate?" Qrow shook his head no, "no I am telling you that they are all dead, and those that aren't have either fled the kingdom or have given up." Corius let out a mechanical growl, "cowards, what happened to kill so many Huntsmen?" Qrow shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, I checked every known hunter list in Mistral and they were either dead or missing."

"it is good then that Myself and Rick shall be there in two days' time, and when I join you we shall find out what has happened in Mistral." With that the Alpha sagged slightly before standing strait again, "The Magos has given new orders." Ozpin spoke up, "and they are?" "to begin Anti-Grimm patrols and Bandit suppression effective immediately."

 _ **so new chapter, story is not dead,** **I've**_ _ **just been trying to figure out how to progress the story without just steamrolling the planet, this chapter is set sort of at the end of vol 4 and the** **beginning** **of vol 5, if it seems to jump around to much I'm sorry, I've been trying to figure out the timeline of Rwby, which I'm sure a lot of you will know how much a struggle that is. i also don't know when ill have the next chapter up but it will go up, i will finish this story.**_


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Corius watched as the young Ruby rose fought with the even younger Oscar, to him the notion that Ozpin was trapped within the boy's body was both humorous and more than a bit concerning, that Ozpin had that sort of power was bordering demonic possession. But as far as Corius was able to determine it was nothing of the sort, he mused that had a member of the inquisition been here they would have exterminatus the whole planet within minutes of meeting the first person with aura.

He watched as Ruby hit Oscar hard in the face and sent him flying away a few metres onto his back and then as Ozpin seemed to take over and then quickly overpowered Ruby ending the fight with a headbutt under the girl's chin. "its all well and good to fight children many years your junior Ozpin, but how do you fare against someone comparable in age?" Corius asked as he moved from the side-lines.

Ozpin squared himself up to face Corius, "and what lesson are we teaching today Magos" Ozpin asked as Corius disengaged his Eradication ray and placed down his Omnissian Axe. "simple, how to know when you are out matched in terms of skill and raw strength." The two ancient beings faced off for a moment then at an unknown signal Ozpin surged forward, throwing his fist forward laced in aura.

Corius for his part was unmoving, until the last moment with surprising speed brought a hand up and caught Ozpin's punch, stopping it cold. "this Children is when you know you are outmatched." And then he lifted Ozpin by his arm and threw him away. "you can use skill to beat a strong opponent with out skill, you can use greater skill to beat one with less, but a stronger and more skilled opponent will dominate any fight you have with them."

"while I believe that if Oscar were older that fight would not have ended so easily, Corius' point still stands and it is an important one to learn." Ozpin said as he returned to his feet. "At the moment the foes we potentially face have greater skill and power, while I know that we can win this fight, we still have further to go to do that with out losing more that we have already." At that Jaune looked downcast as Ren and Nora tried to comfort him.

Retrieving the eradication ray, muttering prayers in Lingua-technis to the machine spirit contained within the Ancient weapon. Corius listened as the children moved onto the topic od Semblances, another aspect that would deem the planet worthy of exterminatus. It was a subject that Corius had researched and he found that after six years he could not manifest a semblance or even an aura, he didn't want to know what that meant for his soul if what remnant believed to be true about aura and souls was true.

Pushing those thoughts aside Corius focused on the steady reports coming in from the units sent out side the walls of Mistral to patrol for and kill Grimm. The notable reports being that of a steady increase over the last few days of both Grimm sightings and they number of Grimm in each sighting. Before Corius had noted that if taken care of in reasonable time the number of Grimm reaching a kingdom was a steady number, so long as no overly distressing event occurred recently.

Seeing as the fall of vale was several months ago Corius could not see any obvious reason for the dramatic increase in Grimm. The only conclusion that Corius could come to was that of outside influence, that being from the illusive figure of Salem as Ozpin called her. If ever Corius had reason to believe remnant was exposed to chaos it was Salem, the very boing that could control Grimm. If She truly was a being of chaos, it only spelled doom for Remnant, however the fact that she had existed for so long and remnant had not become a demon world gave some hope for her banishment to the warp should he face her.

 _Salem's Castle_

Salem dismissed the seer after giving orders to Lionheart, the traitor suitably cowed by her threats. The doors at the end of the room opened revealing four titanic figures covered in dark silver armour and holding suitably large weapons. The shoulder pads, overly large looking things, had a silver heavily stylised skull backed by an eight-pointed star, the helms of two had large horns jutting out the top. All four had several visible mechanical limbs, ranging from arms and legs to one even all four limbs replaced.

"Why is it that you send off your little pets and play at war while we stew here sharpening our skills against your pathetic excuses for daemons." The lead figure asked as the four entered the room proper. Salem looked up at the four monsters before her, she may have been the queen of the Grimm but what she had seen these four do scared her, the only reason they listened to her was due to the vision they had apparently been shown by their so-called gods.

"You remain here because the addition of the so call tech-priest" at those word one of the giants growled audibly, "has thrown my plans into disarray." Salem stood, and looked up into the glowing eyes of the baleful helm that stared down at her. "when the time is right you shall have your war, but until then your presence here must remain a secret, as you yourself once said Galtrax if the Tech-priest discovers your presence here he would stop at nothing to see to your destruction." The Heretic Astarte grunted, "be grateful that chaos undivided has plans for you, otherwise we would never have had these conversations."

At this moment Tyrion entered the room, "you should not talk to Mistress that way, you will pay for your insolence." He then charged madly into the first marine he saw. The Marine, reactions genetically and surgically enhanced by the false emperor and then made faster by the blessings of Chaos simply back handed the crazy Faunus across the room. Galtrax looked from the limp form of Tyrion back to Salem, "it would be wise to keep your pets on a short leash." The four Chaos space marines left the room as Tyrion regained his senses, he looked up to see an irate Salem baring down on him.

 _Vacuo_

Alpha-Primus 005 watched as another Skitarii patrol returned from hunting Grimm in the deserts surrounding Vacuo, the Dunecrawlers proving their effectiveness once again. The report from the Ranger Alpha showing a disturbing lack of Grimm, the patrol finding only a small hand full and of that number only a few tried to fight while the rest ran from the patrol. As the last Patrol finally passed full through the gates AP-005 gave the order for the next patrol to leave, it would return in Six hours for the next patrol to take over.

 _Atlas_

After the Mechanicus drove off the hoard Ironwood had been in several discussions with AP-003, his main role being stopping Jacques Schnee from starting an all-out war with the Mechanicus. "I'm telling you James, they are here to take over Atlas how many times must I tell you this before you will see it." James once again withstood the verbal assault from the Schnee patriarch, "Jacque, they stopped a potential invasion from Grimm, I don't care about any sort of vendetta you have against Corius, let me remind you it was you who struck first in that fight." At this Jacques had the decency to look guilty.

James stood straight, "as of this moment Atlas and Mechanicus and by extension Reliquiae are in a defensive Alliance. And from what AP-003 has told me Corius sent similar forces to both Mistral and Vacuo, so while the world remains in the situation we find ourselves I kindly ask you to keep your grudge and your private forces out of this fight." Not waiting for a reply Ironwood left the office and made his way back to his bullhead to discuss further terms with Corius through AP-003.

 _Mistral_

Corius read through the incoming reports from over Remnant faster than any normal man and what he read confirmed his theory about Salem. The reduced numbers of Grimm around the other three kingdoms, including his own, although the small reports from elements around the remains of Vale showed that the Grimm there remained strong in number.

Corius returned his focus back to the world to find not only Rick but Qrow standing beside him on the small balcony outside the small home Qrow was using in Mistral. "How did so many die so quickly?" Qrow asked no one in particular. Rick hummed looking out across Mistral, "I know that the Grimm have been more prevalent as of late, but I refuse to believe so many huntsmen and huntresses could have been killed buy just extra Grimm."

Before Corius could offer his opinion and theory the three men turned at a sound behind them, the three having different reactions to the sight of a red and black portal forming on the balcony. Qrow looked angry, rick was mostly confused and on guard while Corius was trying to figure out if it was a sudden warp tear or some new development. Seconds later an engine could be heard before a yellow motorbike slowly left the portal and it collapsed on itself. Qrow let out a quiet "Oh" as the two figures fully emerged.

In the house the four teens were preparing dinner, in preparation for the supposed hunters coming to help the group find the spring maiden. Qrow's voice came from the entry hall, "I'm back" Ruby busy trying not to burn her part of the meal call out "be right there" and then as there was puff of black smoke Qrow calls out again, "fine you take over and she hands the dish to Ren. Grabbing a try with a tea pot and cups she ran out to the hall and when she got there she froze, dropping the tray.

Corius and Rick watched as three out four members of team RWBY reunited together. Corius moved past the watching crowd as he passed Oscar he spoke softly "I need to speak with Ozpin" and then he headed up stairs. Oscar followed along with Qrow and rick, as the four settled into a chair, with Corius standing, Ozpin took over Oscar. "as you all know I have forces at the remaining kingdoms, as well as a few scouts stationed around vale" he received nods from Qrow and Ozpin.

"the aim of this was to protect the kingdoms while we," Corius gestured to Rick "took our fight to the white fang, and while we have yet to complete that, the reports I have received from the other forces and they all lead to the same conclusion, the Grimm have been amassing here in Mistral, while the numbers in Atlas vacuo and even reliquiae have all dropped significantly." The three men looked to each other frowns marring their faces.

Corius continued, "and it is this that leads me to my theory, that Salem is pushing the Grimm to Mistral, most likely to launch a major attack like what she achieved in Vale." Ozpin looked down in thought, "then we are fortunate to have you with us to protect Mistral, however any attack made will only be a diversion to draw us away from the school and the vault."

Rick spoke up as an idea formed, "even if it is a diversion, we'll still need to protect the city, to that end, I propose that you three remain with the students and protect the vault, while I will take _Invictus_ and lead the defence of the city alongside the Skitarii and the two ships we have here." Qrow leaned back and Ozpin nodded in agreement. Corius stepped forward, "I shall leave instructions for AP-001 and AP-002 to assist you in that endeavour. The sounds of the teens grew from downstairs, drawing a groan from Qrow, "how can six kids make so much noise eating dinner"

The now considerably larger group gathered upstairs once again as Ozpin filled Weiss and Yang in on the existence of Magic Salem and the maidens. "so, it's all true?" Weiss asked, Qrow gave a non-committal "uh-huh" while Ozpin looked to Yang, "is this more or less what your mother told you Miss Xiao Long?"

Yang glared up at Ozpin, "you forgot to tell us about Qrow and Raven, what you did to them." Qrow grimaced and palmed his face letting out a groan. Everyone else developed confused looks. "what's she talking about?' Jaune asked.

"I didn't think she'd give that up so easily." Ozpin said to himself. "My ability to reincarnate, though a curse, isn't without a few key benefits. Much like the Maidens, I too possess a certain… "magical" power." He stood next to Qrow, "Using this power, I was able to gift the Branwen twins the ability to "see" more, to move freely and be unburdened by their natural bodies. I… well… gave them the ability to turn into birds. Quite ridiculous when you say it out load" he chuckled.

Various comments from the teens rose up after Ozpin finished his explanation, Corius thought he could settle the matter. "I am from a Galactic Empire spanning thousands of worlds, I was sent here through a tear in the fabric of reality itself, and you find it hard to believe in a little bit of magic, where I come from, your semblances would be considered magical, and would also have had your planet destroyed to prevent the potential invasion of daemons." Everyone was silent at Corius outburst.

Ozpin looked to Corius, "thank you Corius." Turning back to the group, "Granting this power to them was no trivial task, and I can assure you it was not done frivolously. I required assistance in gathering information on Salem's plans, as well as searching for Maidens when their hosts became unclear." Ruby shifted as she asked "So, did you do this to others? Like the General or Professor Goodwitch?"

Ozpin smiled, always impressed by Ruby's innate curiosity, "As helpful as that might be, unfortunately it is not that simple. My power is finite, and if I'm being honest, dwindling. The amount that I gifted to Qrow and Raven was, all things considered, rather miniscule. You see, centuries ago, I sacrificed a great deal of magic to four young women, who I hoped would use my gift for good. They were the first Maidens." That revelation stopped everyone cold. "Miss Xiao Long, it was never my intention to lie to you. To any of you. There are just some matters that I prefer to… "play close to the chest" I believe that's how you phrased it?" Ozpin said smiling at Qrow.

Jaune stepped forward, finally having enough of the crazy secrets revealed that night, "are we just going to gloss over the fact the Corius just said daemons were real?" everyone stared at Jaune before they turned to Corius. "Yes, daemons are real, the very fact that no one has heard of them is the reason I have not tried to destroy this planet, and that is not even brining into account the Grimm." The teens blanched at that implication, even Qrow seemed to pale slightly.

Ozpin stood, "he road ahead is undoubtedly filled with hardships and peril. However, it's been far too long since you have all been together. Please, take tonight, enjoy this moment. Tomorrow we shall discuss our next move." The mood in the room changed as Nora burst out laughing, "Oooohhh, Raven? Qrow? They're Birds. Cracked it!" several of the group just shook their heads at the redhead's antics.

 _ **so, i got this chapter done sooner than i thought, hopefully it answers some questions, and i hope you like the Iron warriors, sorry if it wasnt clear what legion they were. the next chapter will be the big fight at Haven, again, dont know how long it will take to write it so dont expect it to be soon. also sorry if this chapter is a little confusing to follow, ive tried to cut out the rambling from vol.5 while showing off a little of whats happening across the rest of remnant.**_

 _ **Also if anyone is able to draw really well, im looking to get one done of Corius, Pm me if you want to try or even if you just have one done. it'll be used for the story cover.**_


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